What is Javascript TestRunner
What is Javascript TestRunner
How Javascript TestRunner originated; a Journey from HTML Webpages to Javascript TestRunner (which then became the Original Selenium):- In 1989 Sir Tim Berners-Lee proposed an Internet HyperText system and it was known as Hyper Text MarkUp Language (HTML) and was used for Web pages. Prior to this Text for newspapers and magazines was ‘marked up’ by editors before being sent to the typesetters, so they knew the font size, whether it would be in bold or italics and so on.
When wordprocessors appeared, they could send text straight to the printer and cut out the typesetter, the program ‘sent Text Markup Language (TML)’ to the printer; this it was similar to HTML e.g. to turn bold on and to turn it off.
Before HTML, text on computer screens looked very ordinary, however the introduction of HTML brought the text to life and could include images; the format and appearance of a webpage now looked very similar to a page in a magazine or newspaper.
In 1995 JavaScript was invented by Brendan Eich. His first version (where the languages syntax had to resemble that of Java) was completed in 10 days and called Mocha, but renamed LiveScript and then renamed JavaScript.
Scripts allowed developers to make webpages responsive and perform numerous functions/tasks etc., however, whereas before the use of scripts, webpages just needed proof-reading for ‘typos’, now they needed testing, which was done manually at first. Changes to code could cause problems - it was said to have a bug - a term used in electronics, which sometimes referred to a real bug stopping an electrical circuit from working). Testing became more intensive as webpages /web applications (WebApps) incorporated more code.
In early 1998, Brendan Eich co-founded the Mozilla project (which was free and open source), creating the mozzila.org website. The script was JavaScript, which he also created.
In 2004 a developer called Jason Huggins was working on a web application that required repetitive (manual) testing for frontend behaviour on different browsers; and he wrote a script (developed a tool) to automatically ‘Run the Test’ (amongst other things it ‘injected Javascript underneath the webpage’); he called it the JavaScript Test Runner. A Test Runner is a tool that is used to run or execute tests and export results.
To get around the requirement for JS-Injections, Jason Huggins worked with his colleague Paul Hammant to develop a server component (in Java) and TestRunner was ported to Ruby. This is how JavaScript Test Runner (open source) became the ‘Original Selenium’.
What Is Katalon?
Katalon was developed by Katalon Inc. and is a low-code Automated Testing Software Solution that is built on the open-source frameworks Selenium and Appium; it has a specialised IDE interface for Web, API, Desktop and Mobile Applications. It works on Linux, Windows (7,8,10) and MacOS (10, 11) and Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Internet Explorer and Headless browsers. It has dual scripting interfaces for testers with different programming skills and can be used by people with no programming skills, who use a simple interface that does not require the writing of code. More proficient testers can use scripting with code suggestion, syntax highlighting and debugging.
What Is Mocha?
“A five-minute coffee break is all that I need, while the testing tool does its job on its own.” Mocha is a flexible, adaptable and function-rich open-source test framework, used for JavaScript test applications, running on Node.js. It comes with a wide range of features that help to test synchronous and asynchronous JavaScript concepts in the browser. Before deploying into production, JS code can be extensively tested in depth using Mocha.
Mocha is extremely popular and very well maintained. It has over 21k stars on Github at the time of writing and has been around for over a decade. Its documentation is well written and easy to follow.
What Is Playwright?
Playwright is a headless browser automation platform, similar in part to Puppeteer. It can target several browsers including Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge. Developed and maintained by Microsoft, Playwright is a test automation framework that allows the user to perform comprehensive automated testing directly on major browsers. This tool is designed with multiple features such as an auto-wait option, capturing of test trace, flexibility and perhaps most importantly cross platform and support for several coding languages. Playwright is one of the few test frameworks that can use other languages as well as JavaScript / Typescript. Test cases can be written in .Net, Java, TypeScript and Python, and it runs cross platform on Windows, Mac and Linux.
