There’s always a lot of debate in the various agile groups about what BDUF is, why you should avoid it, when you should avoid it, and why is it bad (or good) for you. I just thought I’d outline my own opinions here.
Continue reading “Peering into the crystal ball: BDUF vs emergent design”
Des Traynor did a little post about how languages are not all the same, and Jeff Atwood jumped in with a C# version. Java came out looking really bad at 15 lines for a simple program, but frankly, the reason isn’t because of Java; it’s because of the coding styles used.
Continue reading “Line counts are a silly way to compare languages”
I know what Jeff Atwood is complaining about here .It can be really hard to track down a decent programming keyboard these days.
*Update*: I actually found one: the Belkin Wireless Keyboard. Amazingly enough, I found it at Big W, for only AU$60. I’m a little dubious about the wireless factor (I just know the battery will die some day when it’s really inconvenient), but it’s a nice responsive keyboard, and the keys are where they should be. The bundled wireless mouse will be a good “pairing mouse” as well – the fact that it doesn’t have a cable is a real plus for a pairing mouse, and means I can keep using my trackball.
Continue reading “I feel this guy’s pain”
Martin Fowler wrote about the Call Super smell. This occurs when you are allowed to override a method in a parent class, but you must (as opposed to can) call the parent implementation in your method.
Continue reading “It’s a bird, it’s a plane… it’s a super call?”
Picked up my copy of Head First Design Patterns today (I’d ordered it in a couple of weeks ago). So far I’m loving it.
Continue reading “Your brain on design pattens”
Earlier, I wrote about testing only one thing at a time. A little one-liner I tossed out in that was using text files to load object graphs in your test cases. I thought I’d elaborate on that a bit more.
Continue reading “Text files, test data, and the Jakarta Commons BeanUtils”
This has been said before, I know, but it’s worth re-iterating: a test should test one thing, and one thing only.
First, some scope definition. Using Kent Beck’s terminology, I’m talking about developer tests, not acceptance tests. Also, by one thing, I mean that there should be only one thing that breaks the test (which is very different from saying any failure should only break one test…). In addition, the one thing that breaks should provide diagnostic information – a test failure shouldn’t leave you scratching your head to determine the immediate cause
Continue reading “Testing pattern: don’t test too much at once”
Fujitsu is going to roll out trolleys with scanners so that shoppers can avoid the checkout queue. Naturally, this assumes a degree of honesty on the part of the shoppers. What’s amusing about this is how they plan to “trust, but verify”.
Continue reading “Um, how’s that going to work again?”
Hmmm… salaries are going up again Speaking as an employee, not an employer, this sounds like good news. 🙂
Continue reading “Salaries are rising.”
Software is too expensive to build cheaply.... 