Yet another layer of indirection

I cannot say I am a big BDD-er. I have used it for commercial projects, mostly to define complex scenarios for complex pieces of code (a custom discount engine comes to mind) but it comes with a price tag that I am not willing to pay for the majority of tests I write (unit tests).

I am not going to describe what BDD is, philosophy, syntaxes, flavors… I am just going to mention my experience with a couple of tools one can use if developing for the .NET Framework.

Tools are important in the daily work of a developer (as they are in any other handcraft). The better tools one have the less effort should be needed, with the added plus of getting a lot more done and unlocking scenarios that, without them, would be close to impossible.

Not even a year ago I wrote about Catch notes closing up and leaving me hung up to dry.

And today I was “greeted” with an email, saying that my chosen replacement (Springpad) is also saying its farewells.

Documentation matters.
It takes a lot of time writing it and writing decent documentation it is an art in itself. Writing good documentation is a full-time gift.

Sometimes (more often than not, fortunately enough), things work as they should and one feels the warmth that things done the right way bring.

So far I have been using Google Code to host my code samples. From now on, all new code samples will be hosted in GitHub.

Yes, shutting services down is becoming fashionable nowadays. It is always sad, but I get some comfort that the ones being shut down are free ones, maybe there is a pattern there…

Thee world moves one. I am getting older more experienced and technologies that I have been using are no longer suitable and/or available. It happened before, it will happen in the future again. It sucks for a while, but then you either look for and use an alternative; or you change your habits altogether and stop doing something you got used to.

Sometimes one feels like jumping overboard a bit. Just for fun. And if it does not hurt anybody, why not?

The topic of today’s jump is: I do not feel like creating a class. Am I completely crazy? Did I finally stop programming? No. And no, but you wish I had

For some of my Open source projects I use Subversion. And I still kind of like it. I can use some other Source Control Managers (SCMs from now on), but when it comes to centralized SCMs my default choice is still Subversion (SVN from now on).

Look for my updated comments below.

Back in 2008, I wrote a blog post in order to get a free license of TypeMock (now Typemock Isolator). As a result, I got a free license of the product (which I am thankful even though I have not run it a single time) and a “nice” newsletter subscription.

I confess. I also had a incendiary post (never published) about Red Gate’s decision to stop offering Reflector as a free application and move towards a paying-only scheme.
It was bitter, it was childish, it had bad words such as “greed” and “liar”, it was a true emotional statement. I let it rot in my Drafts folder.

I do my share of traveling. Besides the 3-hour-commuting-each-way between where I live and where my company is located, I travel on holidays, short trips, relatives/friends visits,…
I like traveling, but it bores me to death: delays, time at the airport, the usual slow mean of transport,…
I also like to keep current in terms of technology and, sadly enough, my time and my company’s money is not infinite to send me to all the events/conferences around the world of any interest to me.

Being pragmatic (aka. lazy) is a desirable skill in a developer. Mainly because time spent in a client task has, most of the time, a direct relationship to the size of their bill. And the better bang or their money, the more likely is to get another engagement. And so on…

"Oi" everyone.

Been quiet for a couple of weeks for a good reason: It was about time to get my laptop (where all of my blogging happens) back to fitness.

Long, long time since anything gets posted. A mix of summer and delivery rush left me without much to say and even less time to say it.

Ok, now I am writing this while I am still angry. I know I shouldn't, but I really can't help it.

I have been using Visual Studio since it's been RTM.

Call me a chicken, cheap or whatever you like, fut I have always felt weird doing QA for Microsoft for free. So I did not use their CTPs or Betas that much and therefore I did not submit any suggestion or reported any bug. Should I complain then? Absolutely YES.