For backend testing, I like to write tests using nose in python, using the awesome Requests library to drive the web interaction. Because Requests handles cooki

For backend testing, I like to write tests using nose in python, using the awesome Requests library to drive the web interaction. Because Requests handles cookies well (for whole sessions), and allows all http methods, and has great header, file, post params, etc support, it really makes driving webapps simple. A couple of functions to get a session into appropriate state (logged in with user or whatnot) and you have easy setup fixtures -- so you can try things in isolation quite well.