Browserless Web Development

note: "Web development" in this article doesn't include UI design/implementation, which means all (backend, database, html etc.) except css/javascript.

I just found a new measure on code/web-developer recently. A traditional web development loop may look like this:

1. read new feature/story
2. code
3. try it in browser, if there's any problem, goto 2 (goto considered useful here)
4. commit your code

An obvious problem here is, there's no room left for *automated* test. You may write *automated* test in step 2, but no one force you to do it. A better process (I think) should be like this:

1. read new feature/story
2. code
3. write a piece of code to test code in step 2, if there's any problem, goto 2
4. commit your code

So we change step 3 only, removed browser from our process. *Automated* test become an explicit step here. You can switch step 2/3 in the latter process, so you'll write test first in that case, that's not the point here so I left them unchanged. The point is if you don't have a browser at hand you'll be forced to test your code by writing code, which is automated, reusable and cool. You'll find you're working in TDD style naturally even you don't know what TDD is.

That's what I called Browserless Web Development. The less a web developer use browser to validate his work, the better he and his code are.