New Blog

I have created a new blog that combines material from this blog and my other blog that was more philosophy and theology oriented. I've moved over the posts from 2006, but not further back than that. This blog will remain for archival purposes.

Enterprise Ruby

The Rails web application framework has put the Ruby language in the spotlight. However, as some enterprise developers have looked into Rails, they find that it doesn't fit their environment very well. Rails has a focused, opinionated design which works wonderfully for programmers who are willing and able to work the "Rails way". However, there are legacy and enterprise environments that don't fit into the Rails mold.

However, the Ruby language is not as opinionated, and Martin Fowler has written a good article about the difference between the Rails philosophy, and the larger Ruby philosophy, showing that there is value to both.

Another indication of the enterprise nature of Ruby is the Enterprise Ruby Studio workshop. The stuff covered in this workshop is not as hot as Rails, but it looks like it's full of very useful techniques and tools for common enterprise tasks. I wish I could go, and I hope they put a lot of the material into a book soon.

I like an expression that I found Fowler's article, and the Studio web page, which is "Ruby is the glue that doesn't set". I think that Ruby makes it easier than some other glue languages, like Perl, to create code that has a good object-oriented design, which I believe results in code that is easier to modify and reuse.

Offensive Coding

Michael Feathers wrote an interesting article on checking for null arguments in a non-public method. Although the example that he gives is clear, it does raise the question of how defensive should our programming be where we have less control.

In a related issue, Mr. Feathers had a link in his post to an article on run-time versus compile-time type checking. This is a debate that is becoming more heated as dynamic languages such as Ruby become more popular. I'm not prepared to be dogmatic on this issue because I see good points on both sides. I guess I will be exploring the question myself since it looks like I'll be primarily working in C# and Ruby for the foreseeable future.

Java Posse

I've found the Java Posse podcast to be a great way to catch up on the sometimes confusing world of Java technology. The show is hosted by a panel of four Java professionals who each have many years of Java experience. They interview luminaries of the Java community, comment on industry news, and respond to listener feedback. All of the panel members are articulate, and the show is fun to listen to, assuming you have an interest in the subject matter. I recommend that all Java developers give the show a try.

C# Integration Testing Example

While trying to learn .NET, I've been looking for various examples of code and testing practices. Jeffrey Palermo (aka "EZWeb guy") looks to be a good source, including this article on integration testing.

Agile Testing Blog

While looking for some Fitnesse tutorials, I found these tutorials on Grig Gheorghiu's Agile Testing Blog. The articles are Python oriented, but it's not hard to translate the examples to C#. Also, he had some good posts on test strategy that are applicable to any language.

Fitnesse and C#

I'm learning a lot of new stuff right now. I'm trying to quickly get up to speed in the .NET world with C#. In addition, I'm learning NUnit, a unit test framework for .NET, and I'm learning Fitnesse, which is a tool for writing requirements in terms of acceptance tests.

I found a tutorial by Cory Foy for using Fitnesse with .NET which would have got me up and running quickly except that Fitnesse, as of last week, was built with support for .NET 1.1, and I've got the latest Visual Studio 2005 which supports .NET 2.0. Fortunately, in the comments for Cory's post I found a reference to Jeff Mattfield's instructions for building Fitnesse for .NET 2.0. After doing the rebuild I was good to go.

Dallas Ruby Brigade

The Dallas Ruby Brigade had their first meeting the first Tuesday of March. Over 40 people showed up for that meeting, and it was great to see so much interest in Ruby (primarily because of Rails). I was unable to attend the April meeting, and I heard that attendance was less, but I plan on making involvement in this group a priority.