Add unit testing framework for JS

[mduan]

We don't currently have anything for unit testing our JavaScript code. Having this would be useful for testing things like the transcript and schedule parsing logic (see #105).

I don't really have any strong feeling for any specific unit testing framework, but one I have encountered in the past in Jasmine.

[JGulbronson]

Jasmine looks good, I'll take a look at it

[divad12]

I believe @phleet likes http://visionmedia.github.io/mocha/. Any thoughts, Jamie?

[jlfwong]

Currently favored setup:

• Mocha for test runner, using the BDD syntax.
• chaijs for assertions, using the expect() syntax.
• sinonjs for mocking (though I need to use this very infrequently, and when I do it's usually to mock ajax requests)

The hard thing for JavaScript testing is keeping the test in good working order. This is facilitated in our python codebase by making make test a deploy blocker (you cannot deploy if the tests are failing). It turns out that making client-side JavaScript tests report back to the console with their success or failure is a huge pain (this was what I spent 2 months at two different companies doing). Thankfully we already have a module system (RequireJS) which makes part of this challenge go away.

The most consistently applied tool I've seen for this is Karma, though I haven't used it much personally. I ended up using either PhantomJS or backgrounded Google Chrome windows in the past for doing this kind of thing, and rolling my own system to support it.

[JGulbronson]

So if I'm correct right now we're looking to test the transcript and schedule parsers. I'll check out Mocha and chaijs, as well as the current parser for transcripts and see if I can come up with some tests we can run.

Is there any other Javascript code we should be testing aside from the parser?

[jlfwong]

Tons, but don't worry about that for now :)

[JGulbronson]

Haha sounds good, looks like getting the tests for this will take me a little bit anyway, especially given the 3 exams in 3 days I have starting tomorrow 👎 Good study break though. I'll start with the transcript parser since that code seems for manageable right now.

[divad12]

Oh man. Good luck on the exams!

[JGulbronson]

👍 Thanks David, looking forward to Wednesday night trust me