Start using the FlexUnit 4 beta today
22.06.09Filed Under: Flex with 6 Comments
I’ve been playing around with the beta of FlexUnit 4 and I must say that it is exceeding my expectations. The single most painful thing to do in FlexUnit is to perform unit testing of user interactions. With the amount of code and pain involved in doing so not many people used the framework. However with FlexUnit 4 it’s so much easier, thanks to the inclusion of the Fluint framework into FlexUnit.
You should upgrade now!
There is no reason why you should not upgrade today. FlexUnit 4 is backwards compatible and you can migrate each unit test whenever you would like. With the introduction of Fluint and it’s support for Sequences it is possible to unit test user interface interactions without having to write tons of code to accomplish it. You get to write less code and another very important aspect is that you can actually understand what your tests do some time later because of the simpler syntax of testing.
FlexUnit 4 is a huge step from the old versions and it is now on the same level as JUnit and other test frameworks. Especially with the easier configuration of test runners, unit testing and continuous integration will be so much easier in the future. I am also over the moon about the FlexUnit plug-in which is coming to Flash Builder.
Upgrading to FlexUnit4
I have a few projects with unit tests using FlexUnit 0.9 and upgrading to FlexUnit 4 is very simple. All your tests can still be reused and all that is required is that you change the way you setup the test runner.
Here is how little I had to change in one of my projects:
private function onCreationComplete():void {
testRunner.test = createSuite();
testRunner.startTest();
}
private function createSuite():TestSuite {
var testSuite:TestSuite = new TestSuite();
testSuite.addTestSuite(SomeModelClassTest);
testSuite.addTestSuite(SomeUIComponentTest);
return testSuite;
}
....
<flexUnitUIRunner:TestRunnerBase id="testRunner"/>
With FlexUnit 4 this is actually made simpler, just have a look:
private var core:FlexUnitCore;
private function onCreationComplete():void {
core = new FlexUnitCore();
core.addListener(new UIListener(testRunner));
core.run(SomeModelClassTest, SomeUIComponentTest);
}
....
<flexUnitUIRunner:TestRunnerBase id="testRunner"/>
What else is new?
I assume you have read the post FlexUnit 4 feature overview which gives a hint at what you can expect. Besides this one page the documentation is pretty much non-existing, but you can have a look in the source tree in the branch 4.x for samples of how to use the new features.
One would expect that it would be possible to see all the new features documented as unit tests, however it does not seem as if the FlexUnit team believe in dog food as the unit tests are far and few between.
Go download the FlexUnit 4 Beta 1 now!
Cairngorm coming alive?
02.04.09Filed Under: Misc with 0 Comments
I’ve written about how much I think Cairngorm should be put to sleep, but having a big mouth sometimes has the downside that you might have to your money where your mouth is. Allistar challenged everyone who’d been complaining about Cairngorm to step up and join the Cairngorm Committee, so I did.
Just this evening the Committee had their first conference call and it actually might look as if the framework might come back from the dead. What is even better is that it might actually become a better more developer friendly framework.
Another one bites the dust: MediaMaster
03.02.09Filed Under: Misc with 0 Comments
MediaMaster was one of the direct competitors of the music service Ezmo which I helped build. It was with sadness I read today that they too had to close down the service due to lack of funding. I know all to well how difficult it is to fund such a service and given the current global financial crisis it’s not a huge surprise.
Out of the closest competitors to Ezmo I guess it was Anywhere.FM who really made it, they got swallowed by Imeem just a few months after launching.
It seems like subscription based services like Spotify are catching on, but to me those services are more about music consumtion than music collection. In my opinnion there is still room for services which provide a way for music collectors to enjoy music digitally whereever they may reside. Maybe it’s me being an old fart, but I like to have some piece of music I can call my own in the sense that it’s my collection…
I wish my Swedish friends in Spotify all the best and I hope they can sit at Steve Jobs’s table and turn down a 30 billion dollar offer 
UPDATE!
Not even the record industry themselves are capabel of creating music services which last over time. This week Sony BMG and Universal Music’s joint venture TotalMusic had to shut down. Aparently they had some of the same problems as the other services mentioned here and this makes you wonder if this really is an industry that’s worth saving or if they should just die as a result of their own incompetence.
Pattern Jerk Off 2.0
30.01.09Filed Under: Misc with 0 Comments
It’s always funny when you see the results of software architects having jerked off extensively while drawing diagrams on how to write applications. The Patterns&Practices site by Microsoft is one of the best places to see this in the wild.
One such jerk off session resulted in what they have called Three-Tier RIA Application Scenario. It has more patterns than Paris Hilton has bags. I guess this is what happens when someone with an engineering degree tries to explain in simple words what goes arround in their head.
Holy cow, Spring ActionScript?
10.12.08Filed Under: Flex with 0 Comments
Yesterday I was excited about SpringSource helping out with building an improved version of BlazeDS which works even better with the Spring Framework. Today I read on InfoQ that SpringSource is indeed doing even more exciting stuff, they’re helping take Christophe Herreman’s Prana Framework to the next level. Spring ActionScript is the new name and this is really great news and everyone should get excited, right now!
Most of the current Flex/ActionScript frameworks tend to have the same problem, that they don’t focus upon developer productivity. They guys and girls at SpringSource have a great track record when it comes to creating developer friendly frameworks, so this is great news for those of us who’s batteled with Cairngorm and other MVC frameworks for some time.
Spring + Flex = true
09.12.08Filed Under: Flex with 0 Comments
Yesterday Adobe and SpringSource announced they are working together to make the Java and Flex platforms work together even better than they are today. Christophe Coenrates reports that SpringSource is working on a new project called Spring Data Services which is supposed to integrate BlazeDS even close with the Spring framework.
This is great news as the people of SpringSource tend to have a much better focus than Adobe on developer productivity and easy of use. You can say alot of good things about BlazeDS, but it’s very much an outdated piece of software and it really needs to take the next step.
Read the press release from SpringSource
