Testing My Non-ColdBox Site With TestBox

Ever had this thought? “Sure, TestBox looks great, but I built a bunch of web apps that aren’t based on ColdBox. How do I test those?”

Answer: The same way! TestBox is an entirely stand-alone product! It in no way requires that your apps be ColdBox based — TestBox really is a tool available for all CFML developers!

We all know testing is important. We all know we need to do it. Do we all know how to use TestBox on our non-ColdBox web apps? Let’s learn how!

In this talk we’ll show how easy it is to install and configure TestBox. Then we’ll show the basic syntax for writing your first tests, how to run the tests, and the basic setup for a “test suite”. We’ll also look at some different ways you can test your code, even if none of your site is based on ColdBox. And we’ll also look at some of the reporting options available in TestBox, helping you to see which parts of your application are being tested properly.

Target Audience: This talk is for any current CFML developer, not just those using ColdBox as their MVC framework of choice. The more OOP and modern web development experience attendees have, the better, but we’ll try to keep the content as general as possible so it’s applicable to the widest audience.

Assumed Knowledge: Attendees should have at least an intermediate skill level with CFML. Familiarity with modern techniques such as OOP, MVC, Service Layers, Models, and some sort of JavaScript framework (Angular, Vue.JS, etc) will all be helpful.

Main takeaways:

What’s the easiest way to install and start using TestBox?
An overview of how to write BDD tests.
Running your first tests.
The many ways TestBox can report its findings to us.
Testing my code even if it’s not a ColdBox app.
Testing my code even if it’s super old legacy CFinclude files.
A realization that I can test any CFML app, not just ColdBox ones!