The Sherpa Project

A while back, I was looking for an answer to a Javascript question and I ended up finding the answer in this Javascript reference. More important than finding the answer to my question, I was intrigued by how clear the reference was with minimal text and the fact that the reference was put together as a list of assertions. It came down to the code being self-documenting and being very easy to understand.

Ever since I saw the Visibone references (all of which are very good), I have tried to learn new languages taking a test-driven approach to learning the legend. Usually, the first thing I learn about is a test runner that I can use for the language and then I play with the language by using the test runner and creating a bunch of tests. Everything is self-documenting and I can go back and tweak examples when I want to expand on my knowledge or find out how certain scenarios work. Best of all, I have a record of my learning and when I switch versions of the language or library, I can simply run my tests to see if anything I know has changed since the last time I used the language or library.

I recently started playing with the prototype library, and this approach has been a great asset. I can learn a little at a time and review my progress at any time. The prototype library is a Javascript library and I started out by using the script.aculo.us unit testing library (which is built on top of prototype).

My approach was to create a new .Net website, create a master page with all of the javascript references, and then adding new content placeholders for each logical area that I'm learning about.

My test page looks like this…

…and the tests look something like this…

This has been a great way to learn prototype and I think I'm probably going to do this more and more moving forward. Just about every language seems to have a unit testing framework and I like the idea of having code that I can go back and execute.