On my current project, we are developing a replacement for a legacy system written in Visual FoxPro that our customer has used for the last couple of decades. Since there is a lot of risk in switching over, we have developed a bi-directional syncing tool that attempts to keep each system up-to-date with changes made in the other. Read more on A Simple Approach to Comparing Database Structures…
testing
Headless Chrome with Testem on VSTS-Hosted Agents
I previously wrote about building a Node app on VSTS Windows agents. Since then, we’ve started using headless Chrome on those agents. Here’s how. Read more on Headless Chrome with Testem on VSTS-Hosted Agents…
Unit Testing Phoenix Controllers with Mox
As the ecosystem for Elixir matures more and more, there are some libraries that seem particularly promising to me. One of them is Mox, a simple but powerful library for implementing mocks for predefined behaviours (note the British spelling!). Read more on Unit Testing Phoenix Controllers with Mox…
An Introduction to Property-Based Testing with JavaScript
Property-based testing is a powerful technique that’s been widely and successfully applied to functional-style codebases for a long time. As functional programming continues to get more and more popular among JavaScript developers, the value of this style of testing is becoming more obvious to a wider audience. Read more on An Introduction to Property-Based Testing with JavaScript…
Using State Tables for Testing
Tests can benefit a project in many different ways. For example, they help ensure that the software behaves as expected. They also help document that functionality for pieces of code that other developers may have to maintain.
Lately, I’ve been using state tables in my tests to improve both of these benefits. State tables allow for clear and comprehensive tests that are scalable during the development. Read more on Using State Tables for Testing…
Testing Email Workflows Using Disposable Email Addresses
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…
Four Tips and Tools for iOS Testing in Swift
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…
Accept It: Software is Wabi-sabi
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…
Take Your Emacs to the Next Level by Writing Custom Packages
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…
Testing with Swift – Approaches & Useful Libraries
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…