NewJS = Ruby + Javascript = Jails?
Dr. Nic Williams has created a new Javascript project generator that works with Ruby to help with test-driven development (TDD) of new JS libraries, NewJS.
Personally, I would have called it Jails, but that’s just the bandwagon side of my brain talking. I only say this due to its close usage of Rails methods, such as Rakefile, script/generate, and the directory structure and base files it creates for you. Generally I hate things that do it all for you, but this seems to think less about the ‘magic’ and more about helping people get into TDD for JavaScript development.
From just the overview it seems like this is something a lot, if not all, JavaScript developers could highly benefit from. Personally I’ve never even started a JS project from the TDD standpoint, but I’ll be giving this a try later today and this weekend.
I’m also going to look at how this will work with Jaxer, since it is after all backend JavaScript. On that front I’m still testing away different platforms and I’ve started to lay out the design of my first pure Jaxer project that I’ll launch to a TLD. This will help with testing of the app in a truly real-world environment.
There’s no doubt the JavaScript world is really heating up and will become the new language of choice as we move towards a pure RIA platform.