Test Driven Development In JavaFX With TestFX
This post has been migrated to my new blog that you can find here:
https://pureooze.com/blog/posts/2017-08-06-test-driven-development-in-javafx-with-testfx/
A dive into how to test JavaFX applications using TestFX.
If you just want to read about how to use TestFX skip to the “Setting Up Our Application” section.
I recently started working at a company that has a very heavy reliance on Java applications. As a primarily Python, Javascript and C++ developer, I had not used Java for a few years so given the obvious fact that I would have to get comfortable with using Java on a day to day basis, I decided to work on a small project in Java to get my feet wet.
The Application
While thinking about possible project ideas for this Java application I browsed through my Github repos and saw an all too familiar project, a podcast feed aggregator/player that I had worked on with some friends. The application was written using Qt 5.8 and was capable of fetching RSS feeds for any audio podcast on iTunes, stream episodes and render the HTML contents associated to an individual episode. The links shown below in the right hand side widget would also open in the default system browser when clicked on by a user.
While the application looks pretty simple (and it is) the fun of developing this came from working with two friends to learn Qt while also developing the application quickly and in a small amount of time. The reason I considered rewriting this application in Java was because the code we originally wrote had several flaws (keep in mind we developed it in a very short amount of time):
- We wrote zero tests for the application (Yikes!!)
- Classes were an after thought, they were not part of the initial design
- Due to the above the functions were very tightly coupled
- Tight Coupling made it very difficult to modify core processes of the application (like XML parsing) without breaking other features
The Approach — TDD
Given the flaws mentioned above it became clear to me that I would need to take a different approach to this new application if I wanted any hope of being able to maintain it for any reasonable amount of time. For help with how to approach this application design I turned to a book I had been reading recently: Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce.
This book is a fantastic read if you want to learn about what makes Test Driven Development a powerful tool for use in Object Oriented development. The authors provide a lot of deep insight on why tests are important, what kind of tests should be used when and how one writes expressive, easy to understand tests. I will spare the details on TDD but you can google it or read the book above to learn more about it.
The authors of the book continuously stress the importance of using End to End tests because of their ability to test the full development, integration and deployment processes in an organization. I myself do not have automated build systems such as Atlassian’s Bamboo system so my automation capabilities are limited, but I can make use of Unit tests to test individual functions and UI Tests to try and get as much End to End coverage (between the local application and the podcast data on the Internet) as possible.
To read the rest of this post it can be found on my new blog here:
https://pureooze.com/blog/posts/2017-08-06-test-driven-development-in-javafx-with-testfx/
