JavaScript Survival: Screw.Unit

Over the last year or so, I've become increasingly convinced that implementing Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) practices can lead to significantly cleaner code and better design. And in the case of dynamic languages like Ruby, a good testing framework can be essential in enabling good maintenance practices.

JavaScript, that language that for years was written off as a toy at best and an abomination at worst, is now much better understood. It turns out JavaScript is quite powerful and surprisingly well-designed, provided that you stick to the good parts and avoid the bad parts.

But how do you do BDD in JavaScript? One tool I was pleasantly surprised with is Screw.Unit. If you've ever worked with RSpec, you'll immediately recognize the connection. The ability to create nested contexts and tests that read like plain English makes this my JavaScript testing tool of choice.