May 2003
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Welcome
I’ve been meaning to put up a personal web site for a while now. This is it. Originally I had the usual ‘collection of random rubbish’ style of personal web site. This then grew to contain my technical ramblings and … -
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Day 0
I have lots of stuff that I’ve been meaning to throw up onto the web for a while. Lots of stuff that’s been in my digital equivalent of an old cardboard box for several years. I’m going to be posting these old things from … -
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Rifts character sketch
I’ve played fantasy role playing games since I was about 14. We used to play every weekend but now we’re lucky if we can get everyone together once a year. Most of the time we played AD&D, or our own “house … -
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The importance of keeping the metaphor pure
Kent Beck and the XP guys have a lot to say about the ’the system metaphor’. In XP the metaphor replaces what most other methodologies call ’the architecture’. It’s a single, coherent, view of the system. It … -
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Currently reading...
Updated: 23-May-2003 Questioning Extreme Programming by Pete McBreen A useful analysis of the claims that the XP community makes and comparisons between the XP way and other Agile Methodologies. I’m currently about half way through … -
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Death by debug trace
In Asserts Redux Dan Dunham and Scott Shumaker are discussing how sometimes testers have to be able to work around assertion failures and how allowing them to do so dilutes the power of the assertions. The discussion moves on to how debug … -
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The Order of the Silver Rose
The Order of the Silver Rose was a religious order of Knights in an AD&D campaign that I ran. The campaign was set in The Forgotten Realms and was based around the FRE1-3 scenario packs. Continue reading “The Order of the Silver … -
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Understanding bad code
I always used to think that there was probably a good reason behind things I didn’t understand. Now I’m far quicker at deciding that the reason is that the person who created the thing didn’t understand either. I’m … -
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What kind of thinker...
I just took the What kind of thinker are you test over on the BBC site. Interesting results… You are a Spatial Thinker *Spatial Thinkers: Tend to think in pictures, and can develop good mental models of the physical world. Think well … -
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Sk8er boy
Last night I had my first inline skating lesson with city skate at Spitalfields. It’s been almost 20 years since I last skated on pavement. That in itself is kinda scary, I’m not sure I have something that I did 20 years ago … -
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Little and often
The XP folks talk about the importance of making frequent small releases. This method has advantages over and above the obvious ones; not only do you get regular feedback from real users, you also get regular practice at doing a … -
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The Joel Test
Joel Spolsky has a quick test to rate how good your software development process is. I thought it would be useful to see how the refactoring project scores. 1. Do you use source control? Yes. The main part of the team has always used CVS … -
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New flat pictures
In March 2002 Vincent Hart, a freelance photographer, took some pictures of our flat with the intention of getting them published. His pictures appeared in the March 2003 edition of 25 Beautiful Homes. Some more of the pictures are now … -
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On Cringely On Refactoring
Bob Cringely has been upsetting some programmers with his comments on refactoring. Initially, he had this to say: “Cleaning up code” is a terrible thing. Redesigning WORKING code into different WORKING code (also known as … -
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Colorado 2003
In March we skied in Colorado. Beaver Creek, Vail, Breckenridge and Keystone. Excellent conditions. We were in Vail on the day after the big dump in March and had 18" fresh powder on top of the grooming. I took the video camera out … -
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Busy week
Refactoring project going well; Just in time requirements project moving into a phase where we finally get end to end connectivity; skating hurts - lesson two, 2 falls and, well, my body is old :( I know why I ski and don’t … -
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Dawn of the dead
One of the problems with the code base that we’re refactoring is that it’s full of dead code. This week we dealt with it… Throughout the system there were swathes of code that were commented out, there was very little in … -
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Last orders...
Last night I had some beers with some guys I used to work with. They were celebrating the latest round of redundancies. What was interesting was that generally the people that I spoke to that were still employed seemed less happy than the … -
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Refactoring project: Joel Test, reprise
Last week we were a 5.5, now we’re an 8. Not bad progress, but there’s still a long way to go until the project can get a ‘SaneMark’… We can now do a build in one step. We had several point releases last week … -
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Just in time requirements
I’m currently developing an online game for a client using The Server Framework. I didn’t realise that it was an online game when they originally contracted me. It’s become a useful example of emergent requirements. Each … -
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Skating and Skiing
Lesson three was on Monday. We did ‘going faster’, uneven surfaces, moving curb dismounts ;) and parallel turns. I got on well with both. It’s just a balance thing, which is good. The movements feel like they’re … -
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Scribbly pen
I think best when I can scribble. When designing software I always draw boxes and lines. These diagrams give me an anchor to come back to if I get distracted. They get binned once they’re no longer needed. Pen and paper is the only … -
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Slack - Tom DeMarco
I’ve always been a fan of DeMarco’s work. I tend to nod my head and agree as I read, and wish that all the software development managers that I work with would read his books. Slack is an excellent analysis of the problems … -
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Can Do considered harmful
I come from a family of pessimists, but I think I got off lightly… I’m just slightly on the ‘doom and gloom’ side of centre. I expect this probably accounts for my attitude to risk. I assume bad things will happen. … -
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Our first test
The refactoring project reached an exciting new stage on Friday. We were finally able to refactor some code to the point where several classes could be extracted from the application project and built in a library that the application then … -
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Test-Driven Development (By Example) - Kent Beck
Kent Beck demonstrates the testing side of XP by separating it out into its own simple methodology. Test-Driven Development is exactly what it says it is. The entire design and development effort is driven by the tests that you write and … -
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One step closer to sanity
Now that the refactoring project has tests it’s worth having a daily build so that it’s easy to spot if someone checks something in that breaks a test. I spent 30 mins or so first thing this morning writing a script that pulls … -
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Crossover turns and going backwards
As promised this week’s lesson had us doing crossover turns and the start of skating backwards. Crossover turns aren’t actually that hard. Once you get used the the idea of doing it. Just lift the outside leg up during the turn, … -
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We came. We saw. We did a little testing.
Another week another release. Well, almost. The plan was to release today. The plan ignored the fact that most of the team are at a wedding this weekend and nobody was around today and nobody’s around on Monday… The latest … -
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Requirements overload
Today -1 Week: Them: So, here’s what we need by 9th June. Us: Ok, we can just about do that… Today: Them: Oh, add all of these things and put most of the things we asked for last week way down the list. Can you still do it by … -
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Hello?
Just watched “28 Days Later” on dvd. Very cool. Very British - very non-Hollywood. Scary film. The best bit? Seeing the London streets so empty. If you live or work anywhere near London you’d know how impossible those … -
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CSS, IE 5.x and the box model bug..
Ok, the blog looks crap in IE 5.x I’ve seen the stuff about hacking around the css bugs in IE but I’m not clever enough to hack the css sheet that I have to do that. If anyone knows what I need to do to fix it so that it looks … -
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Bottle of Evian == cure for RSI?
I used to have pretty severe problems with my shoulders and right arm. Mostly mouse related; I think. When it was really bad I had a lot of shiatsu, which worked well and helped remove the residual tension in my shoulder. Now I seem to be …
