Smart People:1 Heavy Process:0
This blog is dedicated to improving the software creation process by relying on good people, smart practices and best-of breed tools.
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What’s Test-Driven Development, anyway?
Posted on July 23rd, 2009 No commentsIt still amuses me, after such a long time, to listen to people equating TDD to unit testing. But wait - in conversations and public forums, I’ve seen TDD and JUnit used interchangeably. Nothing wrong w/ the framework, of course. Plus, we know Kent Beck is working hard on v 4.7, so many new cool features are in the pipeline. But, whatever happened to the “other” tests - acceptance, functional, integration, database, performance, security and the myriad of special testing methods? From a value point, one can make the argument that automated acceptance tests are more effective in some cases than unit tests. Or, that functional tests can provide a better overall warm and fuzzy, if you need a little confidence before a release. Maybe, one [all-inclusive] test method is what we need to clear up the confusion
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Scala - Replacement for Java?
Posted on July 15th, 2009 No commentsGreat blog post on Scala at http://macstrac.blogspot.com/2009/04/scala-as-long-term-replacement-for.html. After playing with the language for couple of months, it seems the concepts are really catching up with the developer community and the prospects of retiring Java a real possibility. The language is simple, elegant and potent. When combined with a strong user experience front like Adobe Flex it can really shine! I am excited about the possibilities.
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Great Demo from the Xebia Labs Guys
Posted on July 14th, 2009 No commentsToday we spent an hour with the build and deployment automation gurus over at http://www.xebialabs.com/ going in some depth on their enterprise deployment platform Deployit. It’s basically a Flex-based application for managing the deployment of highly complex JEE software into development, QA and production tiers. It does most of the daily tasks we’re all too familiar with, ranging from dropping an archive into a container to configuring various runtime parameters. What’s interesting about this particular product is the extensibility it comes with - you can write your own extensions in Java, Python or Jython, which is a great selling point for an integration obsessionist like myself. The fact that they wrote in Flex is also a great point, because it means usable UI without the pains of JavaScript/AJAX. I am looking forward to seeing more of the product in the near future.
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Groovy and Grails Training in VA
Posted on February 18th, 2009 No commentsYou may have heard that Groovy was the fastest growing language of all times, attracting fans from around the world. OK, I made up the first part, but its true that bunch of cool people are coding lots of good stuff in Groovy these days. The language and process gurus Scott Davis and Andy Glover are teaching a 2-day Groovy and Grails course in Reston, VA. I wish I could attend as I am sure it will be informative and fun.
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Way to go!
Posted on March 7th, 2008 No commentsI’d like to take a moment to congratulate my friends Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas and Andrew Glover on their winning of the 2008 Jolt Awards in the technical books category for their exceptional work “Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk“. It’s a well-deserved award for an exemplary book from which I learned a lot and one that I recommend to all of my clients. Good job guys, way to go!