How I Work

Detail: Not The Long Game

I was gratified by the response to my first "detail" article. But I did note that many persons praised my article for its commitment to the long game. Framing the commitment, for a geek, to detail, as a long game, seems right, sounds right, cuz after all, we only ever care about quality in the long game. And this is why y’all can’t convince anyone to do this or think this or feel this. When does a bad variable name […]

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Detail: Series Intro

Detail: The thing that strikes me over and over again, in my own work style, in my Friday group’s analytics, in Ron’s long-running Kotlin and short-running Gilded Rose series, is how much attention high-skill geeks pay to some of the smallest details in the code. An example. I was doing Gilded Rose the other day, first time in years, and we start with the ugly method, which we’re asked to add a feature to, following certain constraint rules to make

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Joy Project: FGNO Plotter

Joy project: Today’s a comparatively light work day, so I’m gonna lay out what I’m actually trying to do with this project. The source, btw, is at: GitHub – GeePawHill/fgno-plotter Playtime project for the fgno meetup. Contribute to GeePawHill/fgno-plotter development by creating an account on GitHub. Feel free to poke around. There are a bunch of simultaneous missions going on with fgno-plotter, which is why it’s a joy and learning project. "fgno", btw, is an abbreviation of "Friday Geek’s Night

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TDD Pro-Tip: Against Automated Macrotests

TDD Pro-Tip: I advocate against automated macro-tests — those whose base is entire running programs –, as their cost is high and their benefit is doubtful. I very rarely write them. There is a bewildering variety of terminology out there around what I’m calling macro-tests, so let’s poke around a little. The central idea of "macro-test" is that we write code that launches an entire subject program and probes its behavior "from the outside". There are often multiple programs in

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On Over-Coding

Let’s talk for a minute about "over-coding". Over-coding, when you’re a TDD’ist, is writing more code than you (intended to) have test to cover. But I will offer a few thoughts on this to non TDD’ers and TDD’ers alike. Many people, pro-TDD and con- both, seem to think of TDD as the name for a collection or rigorous mechanical rules. TDD is a kind of jack-in-the-box, where you sit there and turn the handle, circle circle circle, and out pops

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The Shadows of Software Design

On the cover of Hofstadter’s famous Godel, Escher, and Bach, there’s a photo of an artifact he made, called a "trip-let". The trip-let, when lit from three different angles, produces shadows that spell out "G", "E", and "B". Let’s talk about software design. Before we dig in: I love to think & talk about geekery, but it’s comfort food, not my most important story. Take a break, enjoy this thread, but please stay in the larger game with me, which

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Ten I-Statements About Refactoring

HOT TIP: Ted Young’s "Make Your Code More Testable" class is coming up August 23rd. The class is excellent (and covers much of what I talk about below), Ted is a wonderful teacher – and I scored you a discount code. Go to MakeTestable.com and use code GEEPAW when you sign up to get $75 off! In the spirit of my Ten I-Statements about TDD, here’s ten more, this time about refactoring. I’m not covering everything, just hitting some of

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Get Stronger With Geek’s Night Out

HOT TIP: Ted Young’s "Make Your Code More Testable" class is coming up August 23rd. The class is excellent (and covers much of what I talk about below), Ted is a wonderful teacher – and I scored you a discount code. Go to MakeTestable.com and use code GEEPAW when you sign up to get $75 off! Programmers will ask me how they can become stronger at programming. A very good way, one I use currently, is to get together once

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Ten I-Statements About TDD

HOT TIP: Ted Young’s "Make Your Code More Testable" class is coming up August 23rd. The class is excellent (and covers much of what I talk about below), Ted is a wonderful teacher – and I scored you a discount code. Go to MakeTestable.com and use code GEEPAW when you sign up to get $75 off! Folks, I see a lot of ideas and opinions about TDD fly around, passed off as holy writ. By way of counter, I offer

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Sharing Configurations

You can put all your configuration in a shared library and eliminate just about every mis-configuration in your multi-process application. It’s not free, but it’s cheap, and it kills a lot of minor pain. Let’s take a gander. It’s Sunday geek comfort-food time. I hope you enjoy it, and I also hope you remember it’s not the most important story out there. Please keep working for change, once you’re rested. Stay safe, stay strong, stay kind, stay angry. Black Lives

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