Ravi Kumar Gupta and Harmeet Singh are the authors of recently published book Test-driven JavaScript Development which provides a good understanding of Test Driven Development (TDD) and its importance in real world application along with guiding readers on how to implement test-driven programming exercises using the practical code examples.
To know more about the book, download your free sample chapter here.
Ravi Kumar Gupta has core IT experience of almost 8 years. He is an Open Source software evangelist and Liferay expert, currently works as a Lead Liferay Consultant with CD. During his career, he has been involved in building enterprise solutions using latest technologies with rich user interfaces and Open Source tools. Ravi has been a Liferay trainer at CD, where he has trained on Liferay 5.x and 6.x versions.
Harmeet Singh has 5 years of experience in UI and works with CD as a Sr. UI Developer. His expertise includes HTML5, JavaScript, Jquery, and AngularJS. Harmeet has given various presentations and conducted workshops on UI development and writes technical articles on his blog at LiferayUI.
1. Is this your first experience authoring a book? What inspired you?
RG: Becoming an author of a book is an amazing experience. Despite of being a blogger so far, writing a book was completely a new experience and an achievement for me. This opportunity has not only helped me improve my writing skills but also taught me the basics of book authoring.
HS: Yes, this is my first book which has been like a dream come true. I would like to thank Ravi Kumar Gupta for inspiring and giving me the opportunity to co-author this book.
2. Who should read this book and why? What are the three take-aways for the readers after reading this book?
RG: This book is a must-read for all JavaScript lovers as it focuses on relooking at the traditional development approach which would enable developers to write efficient and bug-free applications. Test-driven development is an old concept but hasn’t been discussed much in detail yet due to lack of knowledge.
If you are well informed about the latest tools and frameworks available to support unit testing of JavaScript, then this book is for you. Readers will learn Test-driven development in action along with building confidence & competency while following best practices of development.
HS: If you are an experienced JavaScript developer with an intermediate knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and want to learn how and why the test-driven development approach would work for your projects, then this book will definitely give you more insights into Test-driven development.
With this book, the readers will get detailed knowledge on:
- Basic TDD fundamentals, life cycle, and benefits
- JavaScript Unit Testing
- Feature detection and Server-side JS test-driven development
3. What was your learning during the writing process? Any interesting experience you would like to share?
RG: The selection of vocabulary, content framing and putting them into sentences to ensure that reader understands it, is really not that easy! You have to make sure that relevant terms and concepts are described in a way that readers can comprehend it without any difficulty. This book has made me learn the basic art of content delivery which will definitely improve with the passage of time.
One of the interesting experiences while writing this book was the change of technology. While writing the chapter on Feature Detection, Modernizr version 2.3 was mentioned. On the submission day, while validating the chapter, I came to know that the last version of Modernizr was released a night before and the UI had changed. I had to revise the whole chapter with the addition of new features and functions. It was an unexpected surprise but only such surprises result in amazing experiences, isn’t that true?
HS: Becoming an author of a book is an incredible experience, learnt a lot. Since this was my first book, apart from writing being a challenge, ensuring that readers will understand my writing style was something that made me nervous. But this accomplishment overpowered all the fear. The interesting point here was that nobody had an extensive and in-depth knowledge on Test-driven JavaScript Development. We as a team did a lot of research and learning before authoring this book, and eventually succeeded in getting some fantastic reviews at the end. It was all about team work.
4. Who influenced you to write this book?
RG: Other authors at CIGNEX influenced and encouraged me to go ahead and write this book, as I always imagined myself to be a part of author community. My wife Kriti was a strong pillar of support throughout this project.
HS: I am passionate about JavaScript. My close friends, relatives and colleagues influenced and inspired me to write this book.
5. You are actively contributing to Open Source community. What are the motivating factors that keep you going?
RG: I have been contributing to Open Source has been since 2007, after I signed Open Source contributor agreement with SUN Microsystems. Open Source technology can be applied in any domain, which creates curiosity to learn more about the solutions it offers. The way experienced people of this community have helped the newbies, it has highly impressed me. Now, I have gained good experience in this domain as I consistently write blogs, share knowledge on stack overflow, Liferay forums and would continue to contribute to community in future.
HS: It is a rewarding experience in itself when I can help someone through my experience and knowledge.
Constantly learning new technologies, getting a chance to interact with tech enthusiasts and sharing your knowledge with the world are few motivating factors that keep me going.
