A sometimes tricky and always mundane element of developing web applications is testing email workflows such as account registration or invitation. In this post I will go over some strategies for using disposable email to do just that.
Read more on Testing Email Workflows Using Disposable Email Addresses…
Automated testing is an essential part of every development project we undertake at Atomic Object. In the past year, I have worked on multiple iOS applications in Swift. Here are four things I’ve discovered that make unit and integration testing more convenient and flexible. Read more on Four Tips and Tools for iOS Testing in Swift…
Last week, after dealing with a frustrating build and deployment issue, I reflected on what makes software development frustrating at times–specifically, the well-known feeling that code “rots” over time. I happened to glance at a small Zen rock garden my wife had given me long ago and was reminded of wabi-sabi.
Read more on Accept It: Software is Wabi-sabi…
I wrote recently about using Emacs as a JavaScript development environment. One of my chief complaints was the inability to easily run JavaScript tests from within Emacs. I practice TDD frequently, and having to context-switch out of the editor I’m using to run tests is a big annoyance for me.
I knew it was possible to do what I wanted from within Emacs, as evidenced by other test runner modes like RSpec-mode. Armed with that knowledge, I decided to go through the process of learning enough Emacs Lisp to make a Mocha test runner. In the process, I learned a lot about developing Emacs packages and ended up with a really useful tool, so I thought I would share some of the things I learned.
Read more on Take Your Emacs to the Next Level by Writing Custom Packages…
I’ve been working on developing an iOS app in Swift. It’s my first experience developing in pure Swift, without any Objective-C. This project has taught me a lot about the current state of testing in Swift, including different testing approaches and best practices. In this post, I’ll share some of my experiences and discuss how we have approached testing different types of Swift code. I’ll also talk about some useful testing libraries. Read more on Testing with Swift – Approaches & Useful Libraries…
UPDATE: Justin Searls, the author of testdouble.js sent me an email with some notes on this post. I’ve added some his comments below to provide some additional context.
I’ve been working in JavaScript-land for the last little while, writing lots of Node.js code. Since I practice TDD, I’m always trying to keep my eye on the best new ways to test JavaScript code. Read more on Bye-Bye, Sinon – Hello, testdouble…
At Atomic, we practice Test-Driven Development for all the code we can, from single functions to entire stacks. But there’s one kind of code we’ve long neglected testing: CSS. We rarely have coverage of it, and we often discover bugs and style regressions long after they were introduced. We’re not alone. Most software developers don’t do CSS testing. It’s tough to assert that a website looks the way you want.
I’ve wrestled with the problem of CSS testing for a long time, and I have two suggestions for catching style problems early. Read more on How I Test CSS…
When I first heard about property-based testing, my instincts told me it was too academic to be of practical use. But, as is often the case in the art of software, my gut reaction failed to appreciate the value of something new.
I originally felt the same way about functional programming, so I guess I can’t trust my gut very much when it comes to new concepts. To quote Nick Hornby, “Between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have s— for brains.” I’ve recently stumbled into some great ways to get real-world value out of property-based testing.
Read more on Property-Based Testing for Serialized Data Structures…
Lately, I’ve been interested in property-based testing. It’s a sort of “Monte Carlo”-esque approach where you execute your application randomly (rather than according to strict scripts) and test that it never reaches an invalid state.
It has proven usefulness in lower-level software (such as implementations of data structures), but I’ve been wondering if it could be applied at a higher level. I’ve been wanting to apply it to a web app to test its domain objects and possibly also run it at a higher level, such as through a REST API.
Read more on Evaluating Property-Based Testing Through a Random Walk…
Laying out the user interface of a mobile app (or any app for that matter) is not a simple process. As visual designs get more complex and the number of devices and screen sizes grow, the work of a mobile developer grows more challenging.
Many developers choose to leverage open source tools to help with layout or image rendering. Because those libraries evolve over time, updating to new versions can cause unexpected changes to the look and behavior of the app. That puts the burden on developers to continuously monitor their work for problems that may emerge in the UI. Read more on Continuous Validation for Mobile User Interfaces in iOS…
