tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-238822712011-12-14T11:55:49.710+08:00This blog brings together the ideals of Test Driven Development and other Software Quality practices with the reality of smalltime commercial software development. I am trying to apply Just Enough of Waterfall, Agile, Extreme Programming and Test Driven Development (TDD) etc to benefit from their returns, while avoiding the significant costs of following them to the letter. I am working on web applications with Adobe Flex and Ruby on Rails.Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-25592082623852755802008-02-11T14:31:00.000+09:002008-02-11T15:00:02.512+09:00

This script is designed to be a simple way of launching all rails apps installed in a root path (default:/var/www) and starting/stopping them as required.#!/usr/bin/ruby## mongrels by Gary McGhee ## This is a startup script for use in /etc/init.d # and for starting/stopping etc all packs of mongrels at once ## based on code from http://www.simplisticcomplexity.com/2006/9/26/

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-21200764011343200862008-02-06T15:33:00.000+09:002008-02-06T16:32:46.707+09:00

For a long time I've adopted the philosophy of having a single, global, path root for all development that is consistent across the whole software team's machines. On Windows I've used SUBST to create a virtual drive letter (eg. R: for 'Repository). I point R to the root of the local working copy of the repositiory I'm currently using. If I have 2 working copies (eg. the trunk and my current

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-29210178828099410822007-12-04T11:20:00.000+09:002007-12-04T12:08:12.741+09:00

XRay may be the best kept secret in Flex development tools. Its taken me a few months of Flex development to discover it. I found it looking for a runtime inspector like there is available for Delphi. I want to modify my chart properties and see the results in real time. I would also like to evaluate actionscript at runtime much like IRB in Ruby. XRay supports both these things, and much more.THe

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-63058135503635166552007-11-16T11:34:00.000+09:002007-11-16T11:44:47.981+09:00

I'm building a clean VM of Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" and thought I'd remove the fancy Compiz window manager. I then discovered the previous version was running one called MetaCity and looked into reenabling that. Uninstalling Compiz isn't enough - you have to do the following to enable MetaCity, otherwise you get some weird effects.So, from http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-30897212219306256212006-12-14T15:39:00.000+09:002006-12-14T15:43:06.089+09:00

So you know Delphi and find yourself in the job queue again. The Delphi job postings are much less than last time you were looking, and some of them are for converting to .Net. How do you go about crosstraining to .Net, and convincing prospective bosses that your skills are transferrable ? One answer lies above; look for jobs involving converting Delphi projects to C# (or Java, if that interests

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-49690704432766715672006-12-08T12:59:00.000+09:002006-12-08T13:37:22.207+09:00

Over the past few years I have set up 2 software teams with associated tools, file structures and processes in different companies.Of high importance is the structure of the respository in the Version Control System.Both times I have been aiming for :ability for the developer to have multiple local working copies, and flexibility to locate their working copies in any folder on any

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1157955569264044032006-09-11T14:01:00.000+08:002006-09-11T14:24:24.680+08:00

I've started a new adventure building a fairly large distributed database driven website using Ruby on Rails and eventually Adobe Flex for a pretty front end(this is *very* cool combination). I've got SlickEdit 11 as my IDE which now supports both Ruby and ActionScript for Flex - nice timing there.Anyway, what inspired this post was attempting to use my RnD-style development with Ruby's Test::

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1151467473301925092006-06-28T12:04:00.000+08:002006-07-05T22:19:39.050+08:00

I use SlickEdit whenever I can for all hardcore editing tasks, including C#, NAnt and batch files. I still go to Visual Studio for debugging and Forms design.SlickEdit is not a good choice if you're trying to save cash, but for someone like me that codes all day, its simply the best IMHO.I don't use its ability to load VS projects. I create my own SlickEdit workspaces and projects, and in the

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1151456938580412662006-06-28T08:48:00.000+08:002006-06-28T11:28:20.526+08:00

I'm using SlickEdit for writing NAnt .build scripts, which are essentially XML, and I'm finding SlickEdit is quite a nice XML editor. Here's how to set it up nicely :1) The SlickEdit completion features are wonderful - better than Visual Studio IMHO, in particular the features by-default bound to Ctrl-Shift-, and Ctrl-Shift-. and Ctrl-Shift-Space. The first two match words before and after the

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1145869457589892362006-04-24T16:44:00.000+08:002006-04-24T17:04:43.976+08:00

Each check in should consist of no less or more than a small number of complete features. For example, you are about to add feature XYZ to your program. You've already tested it and know exactly what change you are going to make (no experimenting on production code)1. Update your local repository from your version control system2. Make your changes3. Get it to compile, pass tests etc.4. Check in

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1142118190607681712006-03-12T06:27:00.000+08:002006-03-13T17:06:28.000+08:00

In my view, some of Test Driven Development's greatest benefits are :Guards developers from breaking each others codeProtects a projects quality from going backwards as bugs increase with added features.Provides a series of short term goals (tests that pass, code that runs) for developers to accomplish, fostering a feeling of progressEnables components to be created and tested in isolation from

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23882271.post-1142111392804305492006-03-12T03:53:00.000+08:002006-03-12T05:13:35.256+08:00

I propose that a core goal in the set up of a development environment, including choice of language, in-house code libraries, version control, build process, requirements management, third party components etc is to enable developers to write application code confidently.To write code confidently requires :The ability to hold a complete concept of the problem at hand in the brain at

Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15049406733096408800noreply@blogger.com0