50.1. Previous week solution

You can load the solution of the previous week using the following snippet:

Gofer new 
   smalltalkhubUser: 'PharoMooc' project: 'TinyBlog';
   package: 'ConfigurationOfTinyBlog';
   load. 
#ConfigurationOfTinyBlog asClass loadWeek1Correction

Then, you can browse the code of the TBPost class. With this solution, you can complete the code of your TinyBlog application if needed before continuing.

50.2. Save your code

Even if you can save the Pharo image which contains all the objects of the system (and as such the classes you wrote), this section explains how Pharoers usually save their code as packages on dedicated servers with the Pharo versioning system named Monticello. Smalltalkhub http://smalltalkhub.com is one of these servers to host saved Pharo code. You can also use SS3 at http://ss3.gemstone.com.

50.3. About dependencies

Good practices in Pharo developments are to clearly specify the dependencies of used packages. The idea is to ensure that the building of a project is fully reproducible. It is important because once we have such reproducible process we can take advantage about automatic build servers such as Jenkins or Travis.

To express dependencies between projects and packages within a project Pharo offers special classes called Configurations. Such configurations express the architecture (main repository, dependencies to other projects, structure of the projects) as well as versionned packages.

In the context of the TinyBlog project, we do not got any further on this. Note that a full chapter on dependency expression is available in the Deep In Pharo book.

50.4. TBBlog class

A TBBlog contains posts. We will now develop this TBBlog class and its unit tests.

Object subclass: #TBBlog
   instanceVariableNames: 'posts'
   classVariableNames: ''
   package: 'TinyBlog'

We initialize the posts to hold an empty collection.

TBBlog >> initialize
   super initialize.
   posts := OrderedCollection new. 

50.5. Only one blog object

In the rest of this project, we assume that we will manage only one blog. Later, you may add the possibility to manage multiple blogs such as one per user of the TinyBlog application. Currently, we use a Singleton design pattern on the TBBlog class.

Since all the management of a singleton is a class behavior, we define such methods at the class level.

TBBlog class
   instanceVariableNames: 'uniqueInstance'

TBBlog class >> reset
   uniqueInstance := nil

TBBlog class >> current
   "answer the instance of the TBRepository"
   ^ uniqueInstance ifNil: [ uniqueInstance := self new ]

TBBlog class >> initialize
   self reset

50.6. Testing the Model

We now adopt a Test Driven Development approach i.e., we will write a unit test first and then develop the business functionality until the test is green. We will repeat this process for each functionality of the model.

We create unit tests in the TBBlogTest class that belongs to the TinyBlog-Tests tag. A tag is just a label to sort classes inside a package (See menu item 'Add Tag...'). We use a tag because using two packages will make this project more complex. However, while implementing a real application, it is recommended to have a separate package for the tests.

TestCase subclass: #TBBlogTest
   instanceVariableNames: 'blog post first'
   classVariableNames: ''
   category: 'TinyBlog-Tests'

Before each test execution, the setUp method initializes the context of tests. For example, it erases the blog content, adds one post and creates another temporary post that is not saved.

TBBlogTest >> setUp
   blog := TBBlog current.
   blog removeAllPosts.

   first := TBPost title: 'A title' text: 'A text' category: 'First Category'.
   blog writeBlogPost: first.

   post := (TBPost title: 'Another title' text: 'Another text' category: 'Second Category') beVisible

As you may notice, we test different configurations. Posts do not belong to the same category, one is visible and the other is not visible.

At the end of each test, the tearDown method is executed and resets the blog.

TBBlogTest >> tearDown
   TBBlog reset

Here we see the limits of using a Singleton. Indeed, if you deploy a blog and then execute the tests, you will lose all posts that have been created because we reset the Blog singleton.

We will now develop tests first and then implement all functionalities to make them green.

TBBlogTest >> testAddBlogPost
   blog writeBlogPost: post.
   self assert: blog size equals: 2

TBBlog >> removeAllPosts
   posts := OrderedCollection new

TBBlog >> writeBlogPost: aPost
   "Write the blog post in database"
   posts add: aPost

TBBlog >> size
   ^ posts size

TBBlogTest >> testSize
   self assert: blog size equals: 1

TBBlogTest >> testRemoveAllBlogPosts
   blog removeAllPosts.
   self assert: blog size equals: 0

50.7. Other functionalities

We now develop new functionalities as methods in the 'action' protocol of the TBBlog. While doing that, we regularly ensure that tests pass.

TBBlogTest >> testAllBlogPosts
   blog writeBlogPost: post.
   self assert: blog allBlogPosts size equals: 2

TBBlog >> allBlogPosts
   ^ posts

TBBlogTest >> testAllVisibleBlogPosts
   blog writeBlogPost: post.
   self assert: blog allVisibleBlogPosts size equals: 1

TBBlog >> allVisibleBlogPosts
   ^ posts select: [ :p | p isVisible ]

TBBlogTest >> testAllBlogPostsFromCategory
   self assert: (blog allBlogPostsFromCategory: 'First Category') size equals: 1

TBBlog >> allBlogPostsFromCategory: aCategory
   ^ posts select: [ :p | p category = aCategory ]

TBBlogTest >> testAllVisibleBlogPostsFromCategory
   blog writeBlogPost: post.
   self assert: (blog allVisibleBlogPostsFromCategory: 'First Category') size equals: 0.
   self assert: (blog allVisibleBlogPostsFromCategory: 'Second Category') size equals: 1

TBBlog >> allVisibleBlogPostsFromCategory: aCategory
   ^ posts select: [ :p | p category = aCategory and: [ p isVisible ] ]

TBBlogTest >> testUnclassifiedBlogPosts
   self assert: (blog allBlogPosts select: [ :p | p isUnclassified ]) size equals: 0

TBBlogTest >> testAllCategories
   blog writeBlogPost: post.
   self assert: blog allCategories size equals: 2

TBBlog >> allCategories
   ^ (self allBlogPosts collect: [ :p | p category ]) asSet

50.8. Possible extensions

Many extensions can be made such as: retrieve the list of categories that contains at least one visible post, delete a category and all posts that it contains, rename a category, move a post from one category to another, make (in)visible one category and all its content, etc. We encourage you to develop some of them.

To help you testing the application, you can add the following method that creates multiple posts.

TBBlog class >> createDemoPosts
   "TBBlog createDemoPosts"
   self current 
      writeBlogPost: ((TBPost title: 'Welcome in TinyBlog' text: 'TinyBlog is a small blog engine made with Pharo.' category: 'TinyBlog') visible: true);
      writeBlogPost: ((TBPost title: 'Report Pharo Sprint' text: 'Friday, June 12 there was a Pharo sprint / Moose dojo. It was a nice event with more than 15 motivated sprinters. With the help of candies, cakes and chocolate, huge work has been done' category: 'Pharo') visible: true);
      writeBlogPost: ((TBPost title: 'Brick on top of Bloc - Preview' text: 'We are happy to announce the first preview version of Brick, a new widget set created from scratch on top of Bloc. Brick is being developed primarily by Alex Syrel (together with Alain Plantec, Andrei Chis and myself), and the work is sponsored by ESUG. 
      Brick is part of the Glamorous Toolkit effort and will provide the basis for the new versions of the development tools.' category: 'Pharo') visible: true);
      writeBlogPost: ((TBPost title: 'The sad story of unclassified blog posts' text: 'So sad that I can read this.') visible: true);
      writeBlogPost: ((TBPost title: 'Working with Pharo on the Raspberry Pi' text: 'Hardware is getting cheaper and many new small devices like the famous Raspberry Pi provide new computation power that was one once only available on regular desktop computers.' category: 'Pharo') visible: true)

If you inspect the result of the following snippet, you will see that the current blog contains 5 posts:

	TBBlog createDemoPosts ; current

50.9. Conclusion

You get now the full model of TinyBlog as well as some tests. You are now ready to implement more advanced functionality such as the database storage or a first HTTP server. Do not forget to save your code.