There’s an old joke: A policeman comes across a drunk crawling around under a streetlamp, asks him what’s up. Drunk says he lost his car keys. So the cop helps him look for a while. But no luck, so the cop asks him, "Where’s your car, sir?" and the guy points off in the dark. […]
Method’s the Wrong Place To Look Read More »
TDD Pro-Tip: The first step past beginner-TDD lies in grasping the difference between awkward and graceful collaborations, and learning the myriad contextualized patterns for moving from the former to the latter. Folks invest a little in TDD, maybe cuz they’re excited, maybe cuz they’re ordered. They read a little. They try an exercise or two.
TDD Pro-Tip: Graceful and Awkward Read More »
Folks worry a lot about building the wrong thing, that is, making software that does not please the many and different interests of the org, the users, the operators. I’ve certainly seen that. We all have. Government seems particularly consistent at doing it, tho surely there are plenty of commercial orgs that have the same
Building the Wrong Thing Read More »
TDD Pro-Tip: Build cells — logic nucleus on the inside, environment inputs & outputs on the outside, and a semi-permeable cell wall between the two. The metaphor i’m proposing here is really about the nature of borders in code. Prior to TDD, my grasp of this topic was driven largely by the great theory of
TDD Pro-Tip: Build Cells Read More »
Okay, twice now i’ve intro’d this question about the value of m-proof, the rather trivial proof microtests give: what the geek said is what the computer heard is what the geek wanted. Time to just deal with it, eh? Remember that all of the value that comes from microtests comes before we’re done with the
The Gold Of Microtests: The Value Read More »
I made the claim that m-proof, the seemingly valueless dust that microtests give us, is actually gold. Not only that, but it’s gold whose working out clearly connects to the triple focus of our movement: the made, the making, and the maker. Microtests prove that what the geek said is what the computer heard is
The Gold Of Microtests: Another? Intro Read More »
Okay, shall we take a breather from difficult concepts and do something at least a little more concrete and geeky? And the windswept trees whisper "yessssss, yessssss". Recall that a microtest is a tiny snippet of test code, run in a separate app, that depends on a tiny snippet of shipping code. It is typically
The Gold Of Microtests: The Intro Read More »
Difficult Concept #2: Linear single-factor causality in shared human activity is so rare it can be safely assumed to be non-existent. "Because" is a word with astonishing power. Like most powerful things, it can lead us rapidly to joy and just as rapidly to grief. In the mechanical world, the "becauses" are primarily linear —
Difficult Concepts #2: Simple Causality In Humans Is Non-Existent Read More »
Difficult Concept #1: With most high-skill activities, the doing, the knowing, the saying, the hearing, and the learning are all dramatically different things. That’s pretty pithy, so I better unpack it a little. Let’s take one of my high-skill activities and break it out as suggested by the headline. I routinely, multiple times a day,
Difficult Concepts #1: Doing, Knowing, Saying, Hearing, Learning Read More »
I’ve spoken of thick vs thin culture. And my earlier muse was mostly for boss-types, and I promised to do the same for non-bosstypes. But I need to pause here, and do something different. I need to talk about mentoring/coaching to create proper context. (I should pre-announce, i’m semi-lit. I doubt I could pull this
GeePawing & Mentoring Read More »
