October 2003
-
:
Back to the refactoring project
I’ve spent the last couple of days back with The Refactoring Project. They’ve done well in my absence. They managed 3 releases; all correctly tagged and repeatable. They started some refactoring of their own and, at first … -
:
Comment rot
There’s an interesting discussion going on on the ACCU’s mailing list at present. It’s about the value of comments in code. This is one of those topics that comes around every so often and this time I decided to dive in … -
:
Windows update should...
Windows update should let you flag updates as things you dont want. You should be able to add some text if you want; so it can remind you why you didnt want it, and say to it “don’t show me this one again unless I … -
:
Everyone there works on Word, I'm a bespoke tailor
Joe Bork explains why he now tells people he works on Word as a way of connecting with something people understand. I found that people seemed to understand what I did if I compared Word to a Moss Bros suit and then explained that I was a … -
:
Murphy's Law
This is a nice story about the birth of Murphy’s Law. Yes, there was really a Murphy… From the 2003 Ig Nobel prizes, via Barry. -
:
Does TDD lead to earlier integration?
I’m developing a POP3 server. I’ve been developing the protocol handler test first and it’s nearly done. I haven’t started on the mailstore itself yet but I could easilly integrate the POP3 code into the server code … -
:
Why objects should keep it on the inside
So, I’m integrating this POP3 code with my server and the first thing I do is create null message store. I haven’t implemented the message store yet, so in order for me to integrate I need a message store that just says yes to … -
:
Harvest Time
I had a bit of spare time today so I finished the POP3 server integration. It went nice and smoothly and I tested the result with telnet and Outlook. During the Outlook testing I noticed the ’this server requires a secure connection … -
:
I've got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give you the key...
The harvesting of the SSL server code took about an hour in all. It was simply a case of shuffling some code around, ripping it out of a project and into the library and then adjusting the original server and the POP3 server to suit. So, I … -
:
MSDN Reloaded
Wheee. I can throw all of my existing MSDN disks in the disk bucket and I don’t need to keep wondering which is the latest version. They’ve changed my subscription ‘for the better’… Hmm, it seems that now the … -
:
Exceptions are for exceptional situations
Like drumming up traffic to your site, perhaps? ;) On Monday Joel Spolsky wrote a controversial piece about exceptions; he hates them. Much blog cross linking and local discussion ensued. Today he’s followed that piece up with a piece … -
:
Tests and TDD in anger
This week we started to make some changes to the FX code. The existing code made some strange assumptions about some of the edge cases and the resulting display was occasionally inconsistent. We fixed that, and the tests saved us from a … -
:
Unexceptional examples
We’re going to run out of amusing titles for these exception related blog entries sooner or later… Joel wants Ned to rename the functions in his ’exceptions are better’ example. He wants InstallSoftware(), … -
:
Tangled testing?
Last night I started on my POP3 client code. I didn’t know where to start; I wasn’t really in the mood, so I wrote a test… That got the ball rolling. As usual the test first thing left me with a nicely decoupled class to … -
:
lessonOfTheWeek == !onesize.fits(all)
I’ve enjoyed the hoo har over exceptions this week. It’s made me think and analyse and reassess what I do. I’ll be continuing pretty much as before, but it’s worth spending the time to think about these things once … -
:
James Antill doesn't like TDD
And this is why I hate TDD, testing is a great thing. But testing too early is bad, and you are obviuosly doing that. First you need to know what your code has to do in full. For instance even if you wanted to have both sync. and async. … -
:
Dirty Little Secret: Test code is fun to write
I’ve been busy :( but it’s paid busy so I suppose I can’t complain… This evening I got some time to myself to finally sit down and see how hard it would be to use all of my previous test code plus the real … -
:
Sniff my packets!
Barry sent me an interesting link to a piece that points out just how easy it is to bypass wireless network security. I wonder if you can get a Bart Simpson shirt with him saying “Sniff my packets” rather than “Eat my … -
:
Way behind the curve
I know I’m way behind the curve with this, but… I downloaded Virtual PC from the MDSN subscriber downloads at the weekend. It rocks. I needed to try something out on a Windows 98 box and I didn’t fancy repaving one of my … -
:
POP3 Client almost complete
The test driven development of the POP3 client code is almost complete. The development proceeded in a similar manner to the server code and I’m left with the same thing to write; the message store… I was quite pleased that the … -
:
iPaq upgrade
Finally got the Pocket PC 2003 upgrade for my iPaq 3970. The upgrade went nice and smoothly and the iPaq feels quite a bit faster and everything seems a little more polished and easy to use. So far it seems that it was worth the … -
:
A sustainable pace
Ok, it’s that ‘wine’ time of the evening. Miche is working late, I’ve eaten and am close to finishing off a nice bottle of Pinot Noir and my thoughts turn to people being excited by refactoring editors… … -
:
I'd like a refactoring lint
So a refactoring editor doesn’t float my boat; a lint tool that warned me that there were bad smells in the code would… Right now I use Gimpel Lint as a code review tool. I run it, it tells me nasty things about the code, I …
