I was just on vacation for four weeks and I spent the entire time writing code.
Quick JavaScript testing tip: How to structure your tests?
Something that’s not talked very often when it comes to writing unit tests is how should you structure your test code?
I’m not talking about “well, just put your code into a file in test/SomeTest.js”, but rather, how should the test code itself within your test case be structured?
While it may feel inconsequential – afterall, it’s just a test, and it’s probably just a few lines of code – it’s actually very important to take care when writing your tests. The most annoying piece of code to fix or work with is the code you can’t make any sense out of. Tests are code. As such, it’s important to treat your test code just like any other code, and make sure it’s easy to understand!
Let’s take a look at how we can structure our test code to make sure our tests are easy to understand and follow.
JavaScript Testing Tool Showdown: Sinon.js vs testdouble.js
When unit testing real-world code, there are many situations that make tests hard to write. How do you check if a function was called? How do you test an Ajax call? Or code using setTimeout? That’s when you use test doubles — replacement code that makes hard to test things easy to test.
For many years, Sinon.js has been the de-facto standard in JavaScript tests for creating test doubles. It’s a must-have tool for any JavaScript developer writing tests, as without it, writing tests for real applications would be nigh impossible.
Recently, a new library, aptly named testdouble.js, has been making waves. It boasts a similar feature set as Sinon.js, with a few differences here and there.
In this article, we’ll look into what both Sinon.js and testdouble.js offer, and compare their respective pros and cons. Will Sinon.js remain the superior choice, or will the challenger take the prize?
Note: If you’re unfamiliar with test doubles, I recommend reading my Sinon.js tutorial first. It will help you better understand the concepts we’ll be talking about here.
230 Curated Resources and Tools for Building Apps with React.js
This post will curate the best resources, tools, libraries, and articles that will help you learn to build production applications with React.js. This 6000 word post will take you from getting started with React, through UI design, routing, testing, deployment, and continuous integration. There are many sections and you should feel free to jump to the resources you need.
Simplify your JavaScript code with normalizer functions
Everyone loves a good if-else tower! What could be simpler than nesting a few conditionals?
if(stuff) { if(more stuff) { haha(); } else { cool(); } } |
Ok – that isn’t the most amazing thing in the world.
In a simple example like this, it isn’t too bad. But we all know real code is never easy to understand, especially after ten different people have changed it over the course of years!
But what can you do? Sometimes you have complicated logic, and implementing it without a leaning tower of if-elses can be nigh impossible.
Let me show you something called normalizer functions, and how they can help you get rid of some of that complexity.