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A few nice people commented on my posts on functional tests and suggested a few other alternatives:

• Canoo Webtest. It’s XML-based which makes it go right out my window. Sorry about that. We are a small company where programmers have to do their share of test time. This means that we are not afraid of code, in fact we prefer it.
• Jameleon. I had not seen this one, but looking at the tutorial it seems a lot more complex than the stuff we use now.
• PureTest. This is a very competent scenario recorder/player, and I do like the guys at Minq. But as I stated earlier, recording HTTP will not test your page the way HttpUnit does with JavaScript and all.

I am truly happy with the way we do it now. We have a base testcase class that provides methods like clickButton(). These methods are implemented as Strategies by both a remote HTTP implementation and a local in-process mock implementation.

After evaluating the previous named contenders for webtest tools, the winner was … none of them.

It dawned upon us that the MaxQ way of doing this, ie. recording tests, really is not the way to go, ever. What you’re really doing is testing the server from a HTTP perspective, without testing button clicking and stuff. For example, all hidden fields must be specified at every request. If you have anything Javascript based you still have no clue if this works after having these funtional tests.

Joe Walnes seems to be a really smart guy. He has released XStream, which to me seems like the only XML serializing library you will ever need.

We are currently in the process of improving our functional testsuite, some might say getting one. I’ve skimmed the JUnit site and have found two alternatives:

• jWebUnit. It has a really clear and simple syntax which is why I prefer it over HtmlUnit which I prefer over HttpUnit.
• MaxQ. Recorded Jython scripts.

I am not really sure what to make of it. The functional test suite must run separately from the rest of the system, which makes it a good candidate for a scripted language. However, being able to use IDEA is always better than any alternative. I am not sure either if recording is a good or bad thing.

At Lecando we are long time licensees of IntelliJ IDEA. But since Eclipse is free and open source is good, I have given it a serious try in my spare time. After 2 months I’ve returned to IDEA. Much faster, more intuitive and less weird views of everything (“Do you want to switch to the Java view for your Java project?” Uhhm … yes?). As Jon once said: Eclipse is bloat, IDEA is not.

Förra onsdagen föddes mitt och Cecilias andra barn. Det blev en kille som skall heta Simon. Allt är toppen.

I’m moving out of here, and into my own home. Thanks a lot freeroller.

I moved my stuff over from freeroller to here. I used to have a more personal blog here and leave the techie stuff at freeroller, but it got kinda old. This is the tech department and is gonna be in english. If you happen to wander into the other parts, they are in melodic swedish. Translations can be made available upon request.

Lyssnar mest nu på:

• The Sounds
• Queens of the Stone Age
• Ladytron
• Marilyn Manson
• White Stripes

Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of people in programming suffer from some sort of developers Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, everybody whines about clueless management, we’re not allowed to do this and that, yadda-yadda whine-whine.

But then when presented with a option like Agile methodologies and XP which actually provides the power to decide about the things that should matter them as techies (because that is what XP is all about, you have the right to produce quality code given clear guidance under your own estimates and you go home by five etc), what happens? More whining.