Unit testing ActionScript 2.0

Alistair McLeod at iteration::two made a post on FlashCoders announcing the intention to release AS2Unit, a framework for unit testing ActionScript 2.0. Here's the complete post...

Quote: A recent discussion on unit testing Actionscript 2 classes on this list has prompted this announcement.

We are pleased to announce that the development team at iteration::two have
developed AS2Unit, a testing framework for Actionscript 2, which will be
released as an open-source project to the Flash community when Flash MX 2004
is released.


What is AS2Unit?
----------------
Based on the xUnit framework, AS2Unit allows Actionscript 2 developers to to
create and run repeatable tests. Developers can test their Actionscript 2
classes independently of their on-stage components.

AS2Unit promotes test-first design, improving the maintainability of your
Actionscript 2 classes. As tests and test suites are added to your system,
you will build up a set of regression tests for your application, allowing
you to remove the fear of refactoring your code. New features can be added
to your system in confidence that your tests will catch any changes that
conflict with your existing logic.

Your Actionscript 2 classes can be tested independently of your creative
design, allowing multiple concurrent threads of development. This results in
drastically reduced levels of problems arising during the integration of
your system components.

AS2Unit works in harmony with your source control software to allow
continuous integration of your codebase. Multiple developers can develop and
maintain the the same codebase, confident that the test suite will identify
any conflicts.

AS2Unit allows the creation of tests, test suites and provides setUp and
tearDown functionality to create and tidy up data for your tests. It also
provides a full framework, to allow developers to add their own additions to
the package.

The source of AS2Unit provides good examples of many of the new features
available in Actionscript 2, as it is a full Object Oriented implementation,
using class hierarchies and interfaces. It also uses other new features of
Actionscript 2 such as packages, strict typing and exception handling.


What AS2Unit Is Not
-------------------
AS2Unit does not help in the testing of any timeline Actionscript code, nor
in the testing of any on-stage features. AS2Unit is designed for testing
Actionscript 2 classes only.


What Next?
----------
A website will be created to allow you to download the framework, once
released. The site will also contains links to unit testing documentation
and articles. The URL will be www.as2unit.org. AS2Unit will be covered under
an open-source licence and we will create a project on SourceForge.

The team at iteration::two will be writing some columns detailing the
challenges that arose in the development of AS2Unit using Actionscript 2, as
well as articles on the use of AS2Unit, and Object Oriented development
using Actionscript 2.

The initial release is complete and ready to go live as soon as Flash MX
2004 hits the shelves, and we'll welcome contributions to the codebase from
the development community from that point onwards. If there are any features
your would particularly like to see added to AS2Unit prior to its release,
please feel to contact us.

Best regards,

Alistair McLeod
iteration::two