Customer Reviews

Test-Driven JavaScript Development (Developer's Library)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I initially picked this up hoping to learn some stuff about the mechanics of unit-testing in javascript, and maybe some stuff about how to organize your javascript in a testable way. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a book which covers way more.

You'll learn about the fundamentals of modern functional javascript. You'll discover that it's not class-based OO and that functions, closures and object literals are your building blocks.

You'll see some neat, slightly mind-bending way of implementing things. A tiny example - why not keep track of whether a stub function has been called by just setting a bool on the stub function itself!

Most of all, you'll see that it's very feasible to develop real grown-up software using a true test-driven-DESIGN approach using javascript. You'll also get the benefit of being walked through a load of deep, hands-on practical examples covering both server-side JS, client-side DOM-based JS. This material can be pretty dense; I expect to re-read most of the book again at some point.

Unlike the first reviewer I've actually begun reading this book. Based on the first 2.5 chapters I can tell you without reservation that this author is quite knowledgeable about both Javascript and Test-driven development (TDD). Not only is the book technically excellent in this regard, but the author is also not afraid to state his opinion and challenge conventional wisdom, for instance when addressing the oft-misunderstood issue of temporarily hard-coding data to make tests pass. Furthermore, if you have comments or questions about the book in other online forums such as a blog, the author is very quick to respond. Addendum: having pretty much completed the entire book I will add, there is much excellent introductory material regarding Ecmascript 5 included.

I'm a Django web developer, and like most of us, the unit test coverage for my projects ends where the client-side code begins. I found this book to be extremely useful in teaching how to create tests for JavaScript. The book uses JsTestDriver, which I had never heard of before the book, but is an amazing cross-browser test runner.

The book is written in three parts. The first is an overview of TDD, the second covers JavaScript as a programming language, and third talks about how to integrate JavaScript testing into a project. The first part is short, and the third is, naturally, the meat of the book. The second part, which introduces JavaScript, seems superfluous given the intended audience. It's a good refresher, but the third part builds upon the second one, so part two can't be skipped. It would have been great if the second and third parts would have been more decoupled.

Besides that, is there any web developer that wouldn't benefit from learning how to treat JavaScript as a real soup-to-nuts programming language?

Let's be frank: Even if you're not that into test-driven development, this is the book you want.

In this book, Christian displays stunning prowess with the JavaScript language, and he's more than willing to share. You'll learn the intricacies of the language, see best practices for working with the dom, code reuse and object oriented design, functional programming, server-side scripting, and everything done in a test driven fashion.

If you're new to the language, this is the best way to avoid all the outdated advice that plagues many of the other javascript-books. If you're a jQuery ninja, this is your chance to learn that JavaScript has a lot more to offer. And even if you're already a JavaScript expert, I guarantee you'll find a few new useful tricks either way.

And let's not forget: At the end, you'll definitely be into TDD too.

I had high hopes for this book. I'm trying to wrap my head around TDD and I thought JavaScript would be the perfect tool to learn (since it is very accessible). The 1st couple of chapters were pretty good and I was hanging in there, but then the examples didn't make much sense and there wasn't a lot of context as to why they were even there. Once, the book went deep into JavaScript it got very dry (like most technical books).

Unfortunately this wasn't the intro to TDD as I had hoped.

I actually wrote a full review on my blog (linked below), but here are some quick thoughts:
- The book is amazing. Period. It's probably the best JavaScript book I've read yet... and I read a lot of books.
- The book is NOT for beginners. That being said, every JavaScript developer should read this book.
- The book discusses more than TDD... it covers a lot of basic and IMPORTANT concepts many developers don't understand.

Buy this book. You will not be disappointed.

For my full review, check my website:
- [...]

I bought this book to get a deeper understanding of Javascript and to figure out what TDD (Test Driven Development) was. After finishing this book in 2 weeks, I feel that my goals have been accomplished.

Christian Johansen did a excellent job writing Test Driven Javascript Development.
The overall structure is well organized, the code is easy to read with concise explanations and examples are plentiful.

The first part of the book gives you a general overview of TDD and unit testing and code quality tools.
Afterwards, you move on to learning about the basic, advance and future elements of Javascript. Example topics include function creation, binding, different ways to perform inheritance, closure, and ECMAScript 5.

Lastly, the rest of the book is dedicated towards getting you into the mindset of a TDD developer by building small web applications with the author. This means that each section go like this.

Write a test case.
Watch it fail.
Program it to pass.
Re-factor.

I found it amazing what you can do with the Assert, Stub, Mock and Spy functions.

One thing that I've been noticing is that writing test cases takes a LONG time when you first start out as beginner.
Also, I found it hard to avoid testing implementation rather than states and behaviors. But I guess making good test cases comes with experience.

One problem that I faced was that jsTestDriver (the preferred unit testing framework through the book) doesn't work well with jQuery plug-ins. So I ditched it and went with SINON.JS + QUNIT.js. Ever since then I haven't had any problems writing and testing test cases.

I highly recommend this book for anyone curious about Test Driven Development, Unit Testing or wishing to better understand and improve their Javascript.

This book provides an excellent tutorial for test driven development and an initial introduction to JavaScript for experienced programmers. If you are trying to get an idea of what test driven development (TDD) looks like in practice and are interested in JavaScript, this is a good place to start.

The book is broken into four sections. The first provides an overview of the philosophy of test driven development, and uses a few simple utility functions as examples of how to develop software with a test first approach. The second section provides an overview of some parts of the JavaScript language; unfortunately it assumed too much initial knowledge to be a tutorial and covered too little to be comprehensive, and thus felt like one of the weaker parts of the book. The third section uses test driven development to build a simple chat client and server, which provides a great example of how to adapt this approach to the types of problems you see in a real project. The final section is a short review of additional testing tools and techniques.

While it isn't a comprehensive reference on JavaScript or TDD, this book works well as a bridge between the on-line tutorials and the more comprehensive treatments in other books.

As the title suggests, this book gives you a walk-through on how to bring the test-driven development process to your JavaScripts. There's a short and practical introduction to TDD thinking and the tools available, and the main part of the book revolves around the building of a chat client to demonstrate different principles of TDD.

In addition, you'll get a section on programming practices unique to JavaScript. This section might feel a bit out of place, but actually it's more of a hidden treasure. It's a really great, no-nonsence introduction for programmers coming from other languages. This is nothing like a JavaScript 101. The author expects you to know the basics of the language, and jumps straight to best practices and advanced themes.

For web developers that have been focusing on back-end development, while treating JavaScript just as a way to add some effects on top, this is a really great book for getting serious and up to speed with JavaScript development as well. Highly recommended!

...but so far this book is really excellent!
I have chosen to ready the parts that interests me the most, and these parts have been world class I tell you.

Finally there is a book that professionally tells how to do TDD in Javascript!