Learn Cycle, Jspm and Mocha

Cycle.js is a framework where your app is described as a simple function taking an event stream as input and outputting an event stream. 

Cycle.js builds on functional and reactive streams and is a JavaScript framework. What does that mean? In the course, André Staltz, the creator of Cycle.js, will explain it to us.

We'll start this course with an empty project and build out our own toy version of Cycle.js to understand exactly what's going on under the hood. When we have a solid base of how Cycle.js works we will move on to use the Cycle.js API and build an app using the Model-View-Intent pattern.

Cycle.js is a framework where your app is described as a simple function taking an event stream as input and outputting an event stream.

cycle

Cycle.js Fundamentals

We are starting to get a better architecture for these UI apps. But we still have a problem of repeating code for the sliders, since they share so much in common in looks and functionality. This lessons shows how we can create a generic labeled slider as a main() function receiving properties as sources.

Create a Generic Cycle.js Component

Our app is not yet a BMI calculator, because it only has two sliders, but doesn't show the calculated BMI number. In this lesson we will learn how to export any stream from a child component and use it in the parent component, in order to display the BMI calculation on the DOM.

Export Values from Components through Sinks in Cycle.js

This lesson shows what can be learned next as a continuation of this course, and gives a recap on the core concepts: main for pure logic, drivers for side effects, run() to connect main and drivers, sources for read effects, sinks for write effects, and nesting Cycle.js apps to work as components.

Overview of Cycle.js

Let's see next how to use the HTTP driver to generate requests and capture responses. We will build a small app to fetch a single piece of data from a REST server and display that on the DOM.

Fetch Data using the Cycle.js HTTP Driver

Once we have a labeled slider component inside the main function, we should be able to create another labeled slider. This lesson teaches how to accomplish that, and make sure those two instances work independently of each other.

Use Multiple Independent Instances of a Cycle.js Component

We added classNames to pre-processing and post-processing steps when calling the LabeledSlider, in order to instances independent of each other. It would be better if we could hide these steps away. This lesson introduces the isolate() helper function to achieve that.

Isolate Component Instances in Cycle.js

This lesson is the first in an introduction to Cycle.js. We will see how to build from scratch a toy version of Cycle.js. See how to use RxJS to create simple web apps, and how to separate logic from effects.

Separate Logic from Effects in Cycle.js

We need to give structure to our application with logic and effects. This lessons shows how we can organize our code into two parts: main() function for logic, and effects functions for effects.

Organize Code in the Main and Effect Functions

How can we show one string on the DOM, and a completely different string on Console log? This lesson shows how we can make our main function return multiple Observables, each one targeted at a different type of effect.

Customize Effects from the Main Function

What if we wanted to change the behavior of our app reset the timer every time the mouse *hovers* over it? Currently we only support clicks, and they are hard coded in the DOM Driver. This lesson will introduce DOMSource.selectEvents(), a way of making the DOM Source rich and allowing the main() function to determine which read effects it needs.

Fine-grained Control over the DOM Source in Cycle.js

Now you should have a good idea what Cycle.run does, and what the DOM Driver is. In this lesson, we will not build a toy version of Cycle.js anymore. Instead, we will learn how to use Cycle.js to solve problems. We will start by making a simple Hello world application.

Read Text Input in a Cycle.js Hello World Application

Usually we use template languages like Handlebars, JSX, and Jade to create. One simple way we can create our own template language is to write a function that returns these objects for us. This lessons shows how we can use these functions as a DSL to create our DOM description objects.

Use Hyperscript in Cycle.js as an Alternative to Template Languages

So far we have been writing very small apps in Cycle.js. Let's start growing the size of the apps we build. This time, we will see how to build a simple Body-Mass Index Calculator. We'll see how as our application grows there are three distinct sections: handling read effects, handling write effects, and handling internal state.



Manage Multiple Observable Streams in Cycle.js

We built the BMI calculator all inside one function: main(). As apps scale, we don't want main() to grow. We need an organized pattern where each function focuses on doing one thing. This lesson shows how we can easily refactor the main() function into three parts: Intent, Model, and View.

Organize your Cycle.js Application into the Model-View-Intent Pattern

We have made a Cycle.js app for generic labeled slider which can be configured through props, but how can we reuse it in other Cycle.js apps? This lesson shows how we can embed any Cycle program inside a larger Cycle program in a very simple manner.

Use a Cycle.js Component in the main() Function

Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and in the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

mocha

Every dependable library needs to have tests to ensure that you don't push accidental bugs. In this lesson, see how you can set up mocha and chai to start testing your library.

Setting up Unit Testing with Mocha and Chai

Now that you've got everything set up with mocha and chai, it's time to actually write tests. In this lesson you'll learn how to use `describe` and `it` to outline your tests and make sure you don't break your library in the future.

Unit Testing with Mocha and Chai

Our application was able to produce write effects, through sinks, and was able to receive read effects, through the DOM sources. However, the main function only gets the DOMSource as input. This lessons shows how we can generalize main to receive an object of sources, containing all kinds of read effects that we can use.

Use the Cycle.js run() Function

The last part of the code we wrote is neither logic nor effects. It is code which ties together logic (main) with effects. We can encapsulate that in a run() function. This lesson shows how we can structure these pieces together, and generalize effect handling with "drivers".

Generalize Effect Handling with Drivers in the run() Function

Mocha is a testing framework that provides structure for unit tests. In this lesson, we will be setting up Mocha with npm and npm scripts, writing a "Hello World" unit test, then writing the code to make the test pass (as an example of Test Driven Development (TDD), with the "red-green-refactor" workflow).

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