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PART III
More Advanced Topics
“Oh my gosh, what? Another section? Harry, I’m exhausted, it’s already been two hun‐
dred pages, I don’t think I can handle a whole ‘nother section of the book. Particularly
not if it’s called “Advanced” … maybe I can get away with just skipping it?”
Oh no you can’t! This may be called the advanced section, but it’s full of really important
topics for TDD and web development. No way can you skip it. If anything, it’s
even more
important
than the first two sections.
We’ll be talking about how to integrate third-party systems, and how to test them.
Modern web development is all about reusing existing components. We’ll cover mock‐
ing and test isolation, which is really a core part of TDD, and a technique you’re going
to need for all but the simplest of codebases. We’ll talk about server-side debugging, and
test fixtures, and how to set up a Continuous Integration environment. None of these
things are take-it-or-leave-it optional luxury extras for your project, they’re all vital!
Inevitably, the learning curve does get a little steeper in this section. You may find
yourself having to read things a couple of times before they sink in, or you may find
that things don’t work first go, and that you need to do a bit of debugging on your own.
But persist with it! The harder it is, the more rewarding it is. And I’m always happy to
help if you’re stuck, just drop me an email,
obeythetestinggoat@gmail.com.
Come on, I promise the best is yet to come!