SproutCore

SproutCore Guides

These guides are designed to help you write and perfect your code.

Committer Guidelines

So, you're ready to push some code into the public repo? Here's a list of things you can do to make sure your code gets past the review process.

1 - Conform to SC Style Guides

Yeah, this is pretty obvious. If you haven't already go read them.

2 - Must Pass JS Hint

Javascript can be beautiful and annoying all at the same time. JSHint is a god send and helps check for common mistakes like:

  • Undefined global vars
  • use of == and != instead of === and !==
  • Extra or missing commas

The following JS lint config can be used in combination with the SproutCore Textmate bundle.

Install it at /SproutCore.tmbundle/Support/bin/prefs.js

var JSLINT_PREFS = { adsafe : false, // if ADsafe should be enforced bitwise : false, // if bitwise operators should not be allowed browser : true, // if the standard browser globals should be predefined cap : false, // if upper case HTML should be allowed debug : true, // if debugger statements should be allowed eqeqeq : true, // if === should be required evil : false, // if eval should be allowed forin : true, // if for in statements must filter fragment : false, // if HTML fragments should be allowed laxbreak : true, // if line breaks should not be checked nomen : false, // if names should be checked on : false, // if HTML event handlers should be allowed passfail : false, // if the scan should stop on first error plusplus : false, // if increment/decrement should not be allowed regexp : true, // if the . should not be allowed in regexp literals rhino : false, // if the Rhino environment globals should be predefined undef : true, // if variables should be declared before used safe : false, // if use of some browser features should be restricted sidebar : false, // if the System object should be predefined sub : true, // if all forms of subscript notation are tolerated white : false, // if strict whitespace rules apply widget : false, // if the Yahoo Widgets globals should be predefined indent: 2, predef: ["SC", "require", "sc_super", "YES", "NO", "static_url", "sc_static", "sc_resource", "sc_require", "module", "test", "equals", "same", "ok", "CoreTest", "SproutCore", "$", "jQuery", "start", "stop", "expect", "htmlbody"] };

TODO: we should have a command line tool that is included in the build tools so there is a consistent standard and so all the cool kids using VI have an option.

3 - Unit Tests

3.1 - Don't break anyone else's tests

On stable builds, all of the unit tests should pass. On development branches, if there are broken tests because of a major project that someone on the Core Team is doing, you can ignore those failures.

3.2 - Write good tests

Writing good unit tests is something often pontificated on by seasoned developers, so rather than waste time with a long essay I'll just show some examples of good and bad unit tests:

3.2.1 - View Unit Tests
test("basic", function() { var view = pane.view('basic'); ok(!view.$().hasClass('disabled'), 'should not have disabled class'); ok(!view.$().hasClass('sel'), 'should not have sel class'); var input = view.$(); equals(input.attr('aria-checked'), 'false', 'input should not be checked'); var label = view.$('span.label'); equals(label.text(), 'Hello World', 'should have label'); });

The above test is great because it verifies that the rendered DOM is correct.

test("basic", function() { var view = pane.view('basic'); equals(view.get('title'), 'Hello World', 'should have label'); });

This test sucks because it only verifies that you can set a property on an object.

For more information see [Writing Unit Tests](writing_unit_tests.html).

3.3 - Running Unit Tests

You can run the unit tests by using the test runner app http://localhost:4020/sproutcore/tests or by calling them manually:

For example:

For more information see [Running Unit Tests](running_unit_tests.html).

4 - Consistency

All code must be consistent with patterns found in the Application and within the Frameworks. example: MVC, Visitor, Statecharts don't add special functionality without good reason!

5 - Performance

Avoid things that are known to be slow:

  • .observes
  • nested run loops
  • looping
  • missing .cacheable()
  • code must be prove-ably fast with SC.Benchmark
  • keep in mind code size in kb, number of statements (Internet Explorer!), doing too much on init

6 - Maintainability

  • Don't override private APIs
  • Be consistent and predictable
  • Make your classes extensible for other devs! (comment and modularize)
  • Use good OO practices
  • Reduce coupling between layers (parent classes should not know about their children -> looking at you SC.View)
  • Refactor, don't hack -> make code better not worse!

7 - Changelog

  • March 3, 2011: initial version by Mike Ball
  • March 3, 2011: minor adjustments by Peter Wagenet
  • March 3, 2011: minor grammatical/formatting changes by Topher Fangio
  • July 24, 2013: migration to DocPad by Topher Fangio
  • February 5, 2014: fix formatting issue dealing with dollar signs followed by a single quote by Topher Fangio