In Part 1 of this series I described the characteristics that make up a good Automated Test. Here in Part 2 of this series I will explore all of the benefits you will enjoy by creating those good tests and why the time spent on making good tests is a no-brainer investment. Continue reading »
The adoption of Automated Testing strategies and tools, both in Agile and traditional teams, has been patchy – some teams and communities have embraced it, but many organizations still perceive it as a burden that just slows down development. Those that see the writing and execution of tests as an additional, costly and separate task from development have missed seeing some of the main benefits of an expertly manicured test suite. Continue reading »
Robert C. Martin, during his keynote at QCon London 2010, tried to figure out why there is so much bad code written. He offers advice on writing good code talking about a bad code example, Boy Scout rule, functions, arguments, craftsmanship, TDD, continuous integration, pairing, small cycles, patterns, engineering, certification, and other elements contributing to qualitative code.
This book is a fascinating look at how Facebook started and what it means to go from a college dorm room to a multi-billion dollar valuation in just a few short years.
It is not surprising that there are some casualties on a rocket ride like that, but you cannot explain away all of the deception, backstabbing and betrayal that easily. The book points a finger squarely at Mark Zuckerberg the original brains behind the operation, as the likely cause of many of Facebook’s troubles. The book does elude to the irony that is someone like Mark Zuckerberg, who is by all accounts socially awkward if not entirely inept, running the biggest social networking site the world has ever seen.
The book is a work of non-fiction (or near non-fiction), but it reads like a fiction novel and is easily digestible.
I am the first to admit that I resisted the lure of Facebook until late in 2009, so I was kind of late to the Facebook party. Now with all of the bad press Facebook has been getting lately because of their seemingly cavalier handling of their user’s personal data, I am starting to question whether I made the right decision to create an account at all. This book clearly raises the question as to whether you should be trusting your personal data to Mark Zuckerberg.
A friend brought this book to my attention recently. As an experienced enterprise Java developer who has recently added Objective-C to his toolkit of technologies to solve problems with, I was happy to see a book so close to my heart. I have started (but not yet finished) reading this one and so far it seems well worth the read for those of you who want to also add Objective-C to your Java skillset.
One of the best TED talks I have seen in a long time. Simon Sinek talks about how companies like Apple can be so successful when compared to their competitors.
As of today I no longer need to have Lotus Notes installed on my Macbook Pro! Woo hoo!
I was very excited at the prospect of uninstalling it (yes, uninstalling bad software is all it takes to get me excited). Lotus Notes is far and away the largest installation on my laptop. It weighs in at an incredible 792 MB! The next largest application I have installed is iPhoto at 430 MB and then follows Gimp at 263 MB. There would be very few people that would argue that Lotus Notes provides more functionality per megabyte than Gimp does. In my experience IBM is especially good at producing bloatware, but even this is beyond any rational (pun intended) explanation.
What makes it worse is that Lotus Notes is a just plain awful tool to use. So its a one-two punch, first it takes up ridiculously unjustified amounts of disk space, then it rubs salt in that wound by just being horrible to use. Nothing has ever made me long for Microsoft Outlook like Lotus Notes does, and that is saying something since I am a self-confessed Apple fan-boy.
I am pretty sure my laptop sighed in relief when I deleted Lotus Notes, like a giant burden had been lifted from its shoulders.
The only upside to Lotus Notes, is that it does have an Apple version at all, although this is more due to the fact that the recent versions are based on Eclipse (ie. Java), not so much that IBM really loves Apple users in any way.
Farewell Lotus Notes, it was depressing and frustrating to know you, and I hope we never cross paths again.
The following image is available on the Oracle website currently (original URL):
For me personally the 2 biggest questions about the whole deal have always been What happens to MySQL? and What happens to Java?
MySQL has always been open source and Java has been creeping slowly towards open source over the last few years.
Can Oracle really kill either of these technologies if they chose too? Probably not outright, but they could certainly damage their reputation and community support. People can fork code bases and start again, but it would take time (many years) to build back up to the flagships they are today.
The above image from Oracle is interesting in that it does call out MySQL but does not mention Java at all.
Perhaps Oracle sees more value in MySQL than Java and is attempting to protect it better. Or perhaps Oracle believes Java needs less protection than MySQL, after all, much of the debate over the Oracle/Sun deal has surrounded MySQL and not Java.
Wednesday is the day when some of these questions will hopefully begin to answered.
Why do you think Oracle called out MySQL and not Java?
