Monday, October 12, 2015

AngularJS + Karma - Loading JSON Files for Mocking HTTP Responses

In order to kick-off AngularJS projects, I have been looking at generator-gulp-angular lately, which you can find at:

https://github.com/Swiip/generator-gulp-angular

When doing your unit tests, it is quite convenient to mock HTTP responses using JSON files. However, having your unit tests load additional (JSON) files may not be super obvious using the Karma test runner.

bower.json

For the task at hand, I am using jasmine-jquery which provides “jQuery matchers and fixture loader for Jasmine framework”. Add that dependency to your bower.json file:


"devDependencies": {
  
  "jasmine-jquery": "2.1.1"
}


karma.conf.js

Now we need to do some additional configuration for Karma. By default, generator-gulp-angular wires the needed files up with:


return wiredep(wiredepOptions).js
  .concat([
    path.join(conf.paths.tmp, '/serve/app/index.module.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.spec.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.mock.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.html'),
    {pattern: path.join(conf.paths.src, '../mocks/**/*.json'), watched: false, included: false, served: true}
  ]);



In order to make your JSON file available, add


{
  pattern: path.join(conf.paths.src, '../mocks/**/*.json'),
  watched: false,
  included: false,
  served: true
}



So that it becomes:


return wiredep(wiredepOptions).js
  .concat([
    path.join(conf.paths.tmp, '/serve/app/index.module.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.spec.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.mock.js'),
    path.join(conf.paths.src, '/**/*.html'),
    {pattern: path.join(conf.paths.src, '../mocks/**/*.json'), watched: false, included: false, served: true}]);


Mocks is a directory in my project’s root folder. Customize as needed. For further details see:

http://karma-runner.github.io/0.13/config/files.html

Now, you're ready for testing. In your spec aka unit test file, in the beforeEach:


beforeEach(inject(function (_$httpBackend_, _$rootScope_, $controller) {
…
}));


you can now mock up the $httpBackend:


jasmine.getJSONFixtures().fixturesPath='/base/mocks';

$httpBackend.whenGET('http://localhost:9876/api/plants').respond(
   getJSONFixture('plants.json')
);
$httpBackend.whenGET('app/components/plants/plants.html').respond('');
$httpBackend.flush();

Saturday, October 3, 2015

AngularJS Best Practices - Style Guide

Looks like the place du-jour for THE AngularJS style guide is here:

https://github.com/johnpapa/angular-styleguide

The author, John Papa, also provides the HotTowel Yeoman generator, that implements this style-guide:

https://github.com/johnpapa/generator-hottowel

If you're a TypeScript aficionado, you may want to keep an eye on the following GitHub issue:

https://github.com/johnpapa/generator-hottowel/issues/90

In the meantime - checkout:


And all this came up, as I was looking, for some good explanation for the advice to use AngularJS’
“Controller as” syntax and to avoid $scope as much as possible.

https://github.com/johnpapa/angular-styleguide#style-y030

A really good explanation is also here:

http://toddmotto.com/digging-into-angulars-controller-as-syntax/

Friday, October 2, 2015

TypeScript versus ES6


A good question is: Why would you want to use TypeScript versus ES6?

A few reasons for me:

  • I have to use a transpiler anyway in order to support older browsers such as Babel
  • TypeScript gives me types
  • You can still use JavaScript as valid TypeScript (TS being a superset of JS)
  • It seems to be a more natural fit for Java developers
  • Tooling support seems pretty good
  • AngularJS 2.0 will use it natively - as such you have Google and Microsoft supporting it

Resources

Will ES6 make Typescript irrelevant?
https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/31qocr/will_es6_make_typescript_irrelevant/

TypeScript vs ECMAScript 2015/2016
http://ilikekillnerds.com/2015/07/typescript-vs-ecmascript-20152016/

TypeScript and ES6 Dan Wahlin & Andrew Connell


Angular Air Episode 25: TypeScript or ES6 with Babel?


Thursday, October 1, 2015

AngularJS 1.x and TypeScript

I did a bit of research today on TypeScript. As it is favored (but not required) for the upcoming AngularJS 2.0 release, I wanted to dig a bit deeper. Keep in mind that as of Oct 2015, AngularJS 2.0 is still a pure alpha version and even new projects shall continue using AngularJS 1.4.

Nonetheless, it looks like TypeScript is a viable option even for the latest 1.4 version. In fact, Yeoman now provides an Angular starter (generator-gulp-angular) that gives you the option to use TypeScript as your language of choice.

Here are some resources that I thought were helpful:

http://www.developerhandbook.com/typescript/writing-angularjs-1-x-with-typescript/

I believe, that particularly for Java Developers, TypeScript could be quite interesting - as you have much better type-safety compared to using plain JavaScript. See the following blog entry by Veit Weber:

Why Java Developers might love TypeScript

There is a good presentation by Sander Mak from JavaOne: "TypeScript for Java Developers: Coding JavaScript Without the Pain" on that subject as well:


A longer version:



As you can have a much better OO experience with TypeScript, I think it will be also quite interesting to use rich domain objects with AngularJS rather than using JSON structures directly when retrieving data from your REST endpoints.

There is a great presentation by Gert Hengeveld from NG-NL 2015.



Slides: 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cbNH2WHO8WzF1XKPxMJ3gJXmfKnWAl3cN77eJJJdAEw/present?slide=id.p

Blog Post:

https://medium.com/opinionated-angularjs/angular-model-objects-with-javascript-classes-2e6a067c73bc

Convert JSON Structure to TypeScript Classes

If you create TypeScript classes that need to handle JSON, the follow online tool to generate TypeScript interfaces from JSON might be of interest:

http://json2ts.com/

TypeScript type definitions

I still need to wrap my head around TypeScript type definitions. They basically bolt on type definition for libraries that are not inherently based on TypeScript. There is a repository for them:

https://github.com/borisyankov/DefinitelyTyped


Monday, March 2, 2015

Still want to go to DevNexus 2015 (for free)? Room Volunteers Needed!

We are still looking for a few more room volunteers to help us with the monitoring and basic quality control of the breakout session rooms at DevNexus 2015 next week.

In total we need 24 volunteers (12 tracks x 2 days) for the 2 main conference days (March 11 and 12)  It will be first come, first serve - So please apply ASAP. We will be accepting room monitors from now and up until Thursday, March 5th.

The room monitor will be responsible for:

  • Getting a copy of the presentation slides from speakers right after each session
  • Making sure speakers don't go over their allotted time
  • Communication of any room related issues (power, sound , temp... etc).
  • Count the attendees in each session
  • Provide some feedback in regards to the observed sessions

A volunteer will be in charge of a single track room for one full day. Then s(he) will be free all day on the alternate conference day. For example, you monitor the Agile session room on Wednesday, then you are free to attend any session on Thursday.

Please contact info at ajug dot org if you are interested with the following info:

  • Day and Track
  • Alternative Day and Track 
  • Name
  • Email
  • Phone

Also, let us know if you have any further questions.

THANKS!

Saturday, January 10, 2015

DevNexus 2015 at BMW's Car Hackathon


Thanks to my colleague Sabby Anandan, DevNexus 2015 is getting some mentioning at BMW's Car Hackathon - Hack The Drive in San Francisco. The event takes place this weekend January 11-12.

Details at: http://hackthedrive.com/

Here are some photos:




Thursday, January 8, 2015

DevNexus 2015 - Early Bird pricing ends Jan 9

The countdown for DEVNEXUS 2015 (Workshop day March 10, main conference March 11-12) is on! The AJUG team has been working hard to secure speakers, build the new event site and make this year's event the best one ever:

  • 3 days (1 workshop day and 2 conference days) 
  • 12 tracks 
  • 120 sessions 
  • expected attendance of 1500 

You can see the accepted list of speakers and sessions at http://www.devnexus.com/.

Please note that the Early Bird pricing ends this Friday Jan 9th!! So if you want to take advantage of the super low event price of $250 (other developer conferences of this scale cost $1000-$1800 to attend) then register this week.

Also don’t forget that we have a whole day of workshops on March 10th. This conference has sold out every year for the last 6 years so be sure to register now at:


A big THANK YOU to all of our sponsors that help make this event possible:

PLATINUM SPONSOR


GOLD SPONSORS


MEDIA PARTNER


SILVER SPONSOSRS


COCKTAIL HOUR SPONSOR


See you all in March!!!