Looks like Ian and the lads have done the good deed and set the wheels in motion for London Alt.Net 2.0!
If this is anything like the Seattle open spaces it should be a great affair. The cool thing about open spaces is the attendees make the event. The topics that get covered are dictated by the attendees and presented by the attendees. So if you have any great ideas or queries start thinking about them now.
I also hope the London event is as international as Seattle. Now I cant expect the calibre of personalities, as Seattle is the mother ship, however I would certainly hope to see the big guns from the UK and a much larger European contingency at this one, especially as European travel is sooooo cheap.
Register here asap as once it's full, that's it!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
nothing to do with code but...
This has nothing to do with code but the topic transcends all topics:
Rancid are coming to town.
If you don't know how they are, well, I'm not surprised... but you will be when you listen and then realise they rule... like so many, burdened with false first impressions, before you :)
Rancid are coming to town.
If you don't know how they are, well, I'm not surprised... but you will be when you listen and then realise they rule... like so many, burdened with false first impressions, before you :)
UK TOUR 2008
Nov 01 2008 8:00P Newcastle Academy Newcastle
Nov 02 2008 8:00P Glasgow Barrowlands Glasgow
Nov 03 2008 8:00P Manchester Academy Manchester
Nov 04 2008 8:00P Bristol Academy Bristol
Nov 06 2008 8:00P Cardiff University Great Hall Cardiff
Nov 07 2008 8:00P Sheffield Academy Sheffield
Nov 08 2008 8:00P Leeds Academy Leeds
Nov 10 2008 8:00P Nottingham Rock City Nottingham
Nov 11 2008 8:00P Birmingham Academy Birmingham
Nov 12 2008 8:00P Portsmouth Pyramid Portsmouth
Nov 14 2008 8:00P London Astoria London
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Mac Pro Windows User Experience Index
Apparently "The Beast" is quite good, recieving 5.9 on all scores, giving a WUE socre of 5.9... which is the highest you can get, apparently....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_System_Assessment_Tool
sweet..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_System_Assessment_Tool
sweet..
Thursday, July 3, 2008
MS test... why?
*I am talking about MS test and Vs 2005... i havenot used 2008 so cant comment*
I really am struggling to see the benefits of MS test suite over the OSS equivalents. NUnit which is as old as the hills has been my right hand man for a couple of years now, I have dabbled in MBUnit and ashamedly have not even used xUnit for even one project (now on the to do list!). Unfortunately these have only been on my solo or PoC projects. As i work in .Net companies the fixation of TFS and the MS suite of tools linger.. no matter what country you are in.
The ease of use of some thing like NUnit compared to MS test is not at first apparent then you use both of them...
Both integrate with TD.Net and ReSharper... and i think that's where they stop. If you don't use either of those tools (you should if you are attempting to be TDD) then MS test may appear to be less friction as you can run the test from within VS. This is an illusion!
I personally think the NUnit test GUI is faster and nicer to use as i can see everything at a glance and my whole solution is not required to be rebuilt very time i want to run a test (Arrrrrgggh!)
Take for example the graphical representation of your tests:
Firstly NUnit Gui:
versus the test view in VS
The test view in VS only really tells me that I have tests. Well, I know that because I wrote them, where are my test failing? Is it all in one namespace? One class? One category? Who knows. Sure you can filter but the instant feedback that, to me, is worthwhile.
As most of us write more the 30 test having a window with one column showing all test is a little silly. It also shows all test for the whole solution....
Most importantly running units test as part of the build process with NUnit is trivial. I use NAnt at home and MSbuild at work. Getting NUnit to run as part of a build process was trivial.. can the same be sad for MSTest... no. Can it be done? Sure, I guess so, but I will never find out because I have better things to do then bend and mold software to fit my ridiculously simple requirements, I would rather just use the software that works as it should.
If you are using MS test I would strongly recommend rethinking that descision. I dont think you can be effectively Test Driven with that tool set so get a tool set that help you not hinders.
I really am struggling to see the benefits of MS test suite over the OSS equivalents. NUnit which is as old as the hills has been my right hand man for a couple of years now, I have dabbled in MBUnit and ashamedly have not even used xUnit for even one project (now on the to do list!). Unfortunately these have only been on my solo or PoC projects. As i work in .Net companies the fixation of TFS and the MS suite of tools linger.. no matter what country you are in.
The ease of use of some thing like NUnit compared to MS test is not at first apparent then you use both of them...
Both integrate with TD.Net and ReSharper... and i think that's where they stop. If you don't use either of those tools (you should if you are attempting to be TDD) then MS test may appear to be less friction as you can run the test from within VS. This is an illusion!
I personally think the NUnit test GUI is faster and nicer to use as i can see everything at a glance and my whole solution is not required to be rebuilt very time i want to run a test (Arrrrrgggh!)
Take for example the graphical representation of your tests:
versus the test view in VS
As most of us write more the 30 test having a window with one column showing all test is a little silly. It also shows all test for the whole solution....
Most importantly running units test as part of the build process with NUnit is trivial. I use NAnt at home and MSbuild at work. Getting NUnit to run as part of a build process was trivial.. can the same be sad for MSTest... no. Can it be done? Sure, I guess so, but I will never find out because I have better things to do then bend and mold software to fit my ridiculously simple requirements, I would rather just use the software that works as it should.
If you are using MS test I would strongly recommend rethinking that descision. I dont think you can be effectively Test Driven with that tool set so get a tool set that help you not hinders.
Sandcastle source released
Sandcastle has been an interest project for M$. With the demised of the OSS project "NDoc" (due to lack of support), its successor "SandCastle" made a worthy replacement.
There were some issues with it... in true M$ style it wasnt the easiest to just pick up and use, but in saying that it was kind of a 2this is what we use if you want to use it here you go" no warranties etc...
The next part of the saga was M$ putting sandcastle on CodePlex which is the OSS portal for M$ tecnologies, and IMO a great advancement for M$ to start working more closely with its community. Unfortunately Sandastle was not open source and the source was never posted, which kinda defeated the purpose of it being on code plex... I have a feeling it was only there as there was no where else to put it.
The inevitable happened and it was pulled form the site... which sucks... it effective meant there was now no widely used and accessible code documenting software for .net code.
Thankfully an "outcry" occured, 'twas a small one but loud enough for those that needed to hear. So it looks like instead of taking it away M$ have now release the actual source so it can be on codeplex with out the associate compliants and bagged that would come with a closed project being housed there.
I s'pose al is well that ends well.
More info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sandcastle/archive/2008/07/02/sandcastle-source-code-published-in-codeplex.aspx
Download:
http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=13873
There were some issues with it... in true M$ style it wasnt the easiest to just pick up and use, but in saying that it was kind of a 2this is what we use if you want to use it here you go" no warranties etc...
The next part of the saga was M$ putting sandcastle on CodePlex which is the OSS portal for M$ tecnologies, and IMO a great advancement for M$ to start working more closely with its community. Unfortunately Sandastle was not open source and the source was never posted, which kinda defeated the purpose of it being on code plex... I have a feeling it was only there as there was no where else to put it.
The inevitable happened and it was pulled form the site... which sucks... it effective meant there was now no widely used and accessible code documenting software for .net code.
Thankfully an "outcry" occured, 'twas a small one but loud enough for those that needed to hear. So it looks like instead of taking it away M$ have now release the actual source so it can be on codeplex with out the associate compliants and bagged that would come with a closed project being housed there.
I s'pose al is well that ends well.
More info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sandcastle/archive/2008/07/02/sandcastle-source-code-published-in-codeplex.aspx
Download:
http://www.codeplex.com/Sandcastle/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=13873
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Mac Pro Progress
Alright after a lovely few day in Barcelona with the missus and some mate finally got home and plugged it in.
First thoughts are:
-It looks amazing. The screens are huge and crystal clear.
-All the mac stuff was pretty easy to use the hardest things are the standard "what buttons do what" and "no right click" (althought there is a context menu, its just at the top of the left screen... wierd). The dumbest thing so far is the copy key stroke is actuall quite hard to do, it would be like ALT+C which is not that finger friendly.
-Bootcamp seems to be working OK...
I have installed Office and SQL 2005 with out any probs on Vista 64 ultimate on a bootcamp partion. unfortuantely my copy of VS2008 appaers to be damaged as some files can not be read off the disk. ARRRGGGHHHH!
so i have basically been downloading all my other requirements eg Castle, Nhibernate (i believe was the first 2.0 beta download! ohhhhh), SVN etc etc
so once i have my IDE ready to roll im good to go.
Next up is the stuff i need to pay for... gotta get my VM-Ware Fusion, TD.Net, NCover, NDepend etc...
First thoughts are:
-It looks amazing. The screens are huge and crystal clear.
-All the mac stuff was pretty easy to use the hardest things are the standard "what buttons do what" and "no right click" (althought there is a context menu, its just at the top of the left screen... wierd). The dumbest thing so far is the copy key stroke is actuall quite hard to do, it would be like ALT+C which is not that finger friendly.
-Bootcamp seems to be working OK...
I have installed Office and SQL 2005 with out any probs on Vista 64 ultimate on a bootcamp partion. unfortuantely my copy of VS2008 appaers to be damaged as some files can not be read off the disk. ARRRGGGHHHH!
so i have basically been downloading all my other requirements eg Castle, Nhibernate (i believe was the first 2.0 beta download! ohhhhh), SVN etc etc
so once i have my IDE ready to roll im good to go.
Next up is the stuff i need to pay for... gotta get my VM-Ware Fusion, TD.Net, NCover, NDepend etc...
Mocks v Stubs
I am sure you have read this, but for me a couple of weeks ago this was what I needed:
http://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html
specifically:
The Difference Between Mocks And Stubs
Using mocks when you don’t care if the interaction occurs mean you are writing brittle tests that are not testing what they should be. Stubs are more appropriate in this situation… sometimes I forget and go mock mental. Naughty!
http://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html
specifically:
The Difference Between Mocks And Stubs
Using mocks when you don’t care if the interaction occurs mean you are writing brittle tests that are not testing what they should be. Stubs are more appropriate in this situation… sometimes I forget and go mock mental. Naughty!
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