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Code Reviews: How to be successful

Code reviews are something that not all of us like or do, but they can be very valuable. I thought I would express some of my thoughts/opinions about the benefits and pit falls of performing code reviews. Benefits of Code Reviews Performing regular and...

Published 06-11-2007 9:08 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Fail Fast Principle

I am thinking about posting about different principles/patterns over the next few weeks/months. I have decided to start with Fail Fast. This is something that I think most people over look or plain just don't do. Although the concept of Fail Fast is easy...

Published 06-08-2007 1:08 PM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Methodology, TDD

Technical Debt, How we accumulate it, and how we can reduce it

All software projects will amass some amount of technical debt. This is not a necessarily bad thing; it is just he cost of doing business. As developers the only thing we can do is try to control/limit the amount of technical debt we build up. If you...

Published 05-25-2007 9:03 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology, TDD

Learning to use Mocks and the power they provide

Up until a few months ago I had never even attempted to use mocks ( NMock , RhinoMock , etc). Every time I would read about Mocking I thought to myself, this is kinda cool, but seems to be a waste of energy. At the time I saw Mocks as only a way to create...

Published 05-23-2007 6:54 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Agile, Methodology, TDD

Shelf Life of a Software Application

How long can we expect the applications we write to live on? What types of things increase or decrease the shelf life of our applications? Is it practical to suggest that software is only good for a certain period of time? Or should software be able to...

Published 05-21-2007 7:03 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Kinda like performing surgery in the dark

Have you ever needed to make rule changes to an existing application? I am sure you have. Have you ever had to make these changes when you understand the change, but have pretty much no clue about the implementation of the code base you are changing?...

Published 05-15-2007 10:53 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Definition of 'Done'

What is Done? Done is when the software has been written to address the requirements. No more, no less. has a suite of tests written to exercise and validate that it meets the requirements and is technically valid. source code has been reviewed by a peer...

Published 05-12-2007 10:25 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Questions every Candidate should ask a potential new employer

Over the years I have conducted my fair share of interviews with potential new employees for the different companies I have worked for. In fact my company is currently looking for a few good developers now. What has always confused me is the lack of questions...

Published 05-09-2007 6:59 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Methodology

Cyclomatic Complexity Measurements: Simple code == Better application

We all know that simpler is better when it comes to software development. Any time there is code that is overly complex it makes it hard to test/debug and it is much harder to interpret in the future when changes/enhancements need to be made. There are...

Published 05-08-2007 7:19 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Development Tools, Methodology

Object Construction – Constructing for Success

I have finally come to the conclusion that no object should be allowed to be constructed in any way that will allow for the object to be setup in an invalid state. Way too often I see an object that uses the empty constructor which then requires the user...

Published 05-04-2007 6:29 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Weeding your garden of Code

It dawned on me the other day while preparing my garden the upcoming season that my vegetable garden and the software applications I work on have more in common then previously thought. Now you may be asking, how is this; one grows vegetables and the...

Published 04-19-2007 6:50 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

Raising Events in NMock 2.0

Just to pass this along. I was needing to raise events in NMock and I came across this post on how to Raise Events in NMock2 . This is a good post with clear examples. Enjoy

Published 04-17-2007 9:42 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Agile, Methodology, TDD, NMock

Options Wanted: How do I handle my Mocks

I am looking for feedback from the group. I am pretty new to using mocks for my unit tests and I am not sure what the standard approach in the community for usage of mocks in regards to how/where they are stored in your test application. After refactoring...

Published 04-17-2007 7:35 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Agile, Methodology, TDD, NMock

Code Branching on a Mulitple Project Team

Everyone that has worked on any type of long term software project has had the need to branch their code at one time or another for one reason or another. Currently the team that I am on had to branch both projects (1 team, 2 projects) in the same week...

Published 03-02-2007 6:59 AM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Development, Methodology

The bliss of 'On Site' Business Experts....

I currently work for a company that is a very process and documentation light. They believe very strongly that big process and heavy documents will only slow down a project (actually one of the reasons I joined the company). However, as the new guy assigned...

Published 11-08-2006 7:25 PM by Derik Whittaker

Filed under: Agile, Methodology

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Code Reviews: How to be successful

Fail Fast Principle

Technical Debt, How we accumulate it, and how we can reduce it

Learning to use Mocks and the power they provide

Shelf Life of a Software Application

Kinda like performing surgery in the dark

Definition of 'Done'

Questions every Candidate should ask a potential new employer

Cyclomatic Complexity Measurements: Simple code == Better application

Object Construction – Constructing for Success

Weeding your garden of Code

Raising Events in NMock 2.0

Options Wanted: How do I handle my Mocks

Code Branching on a Mulitple Project Team

The bliss of 'On Site' Business Experts....