Testing Without Mocks Example

This project demonstrates the ideas in James Shore's Testing Without Mocks pattern language.

About the Program

The program is a simple ROT-13 command-line tool. To use, run node src/run.js "text to convert". The ROT-13 output will be displayed on the command-line. For example:

$ node src/run.js "Hello World"
Uryyb Jbeyq

The program consists of three files, all in the src directory:

• run.js - application entry point; no meaningful code
• app.js - Application Layer code that coordinates between command-line infrastructure and ROT-13 logic.
• command_line.js Infrastructure Layer code that wraps command-line variables (process.argv)and output (console.log).

About the Patterns

The purpose of this program is to demonstrate the Testing Without Mocks ideas. The following patterns are present:

Overlapping Sociable Tests

The code is tested entirely with narrow tests that each test a subset of the application.

• _app_test.js tests the Application Layer code and the way it uses the command-line infrastructure, but it doesn't test the command-line infrastructure itself (process and console). It uses Nullable Infrastructure, Configurable Responses, and Send State to do this (see below).
• _command_line_test.js tests the Infrastructure Layer code and the way it uses process and console. It uses Focused Integration Tests to do this (see below).

There are no broad integration tests (end-to-end tests), but _app_test.js and _command_line_test.js overlap to provide the same safety net that broad tests do. The one gap is run.js, which could be covered by a smoke test. (But it's so simple it's hard to imagine it breaking.)

A-Frame Architecture

The code is too simple to have a proper A-Frame architecture, but it's simulated by putting the rot13 logic in a separate function.

Logic Sandwich

The Application Layer code (app.js) coordinates logic and infrastructure by reading from infrastructure, passing the data to the logic function, and then writing to infrastructure.

Grow Evolutionary Seeds

The application was built using evolutionary design, starting with a single file. (See the commit history.)

Zero-Impact Instantiation

Object constructors don't do any significant work.

Infrastructure Wrappers

Command-line infrastructure is wrapped by command_line.js.

Focused Integration Tests

The Infrastructure Layer tests in _command_line_test.js check that command_line.js actually integrates properly with process and console.

Nullable Infrastructure

Calling CommandLine.createNull() creates a Null version of CommandLine that operates just like the real thing, except it doesn't actually read or write to the command line. This is used by the Application Layer tests in _app_test.js.

Embedded Stub

CommandLine's createNull() is implemented with private stubs of process and console. (Those stubs can be found at the bottom of command_line.js.)

Configurable Responses

Calling CommandLine.createNull("my_response") will cause it to say that the program's command-line argument is "my_response". This is used by the Application Layer tests in _app_test.js.

Send State

After sending output to the console, you can see what was sent by calling commandLine.getLastOutput(). This is used by the Application Layer tests in _app_test.js.