Exploring Extreme Programming
Compiler Construction, by Niklaus Wirth. Addison-Wesley, 1996. ISBN 0201403536. I hadn’t run across this before, but I can’t resist calling it out now. It’s a presentation by Niklaus Wirth of how to create a compiler. The source language is a subset Continue reading Review: Compiler Construction (Wirth)
Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer (3/e), by Michael Swaine and Paul Freiberger. 2014. ISBN 1937785769. What was involved in the creation of the personal computer? It was more than just Apple ][ and IBM Continue reading Review: Fire in the Valley, by Swaine and Freiberger
How do you handle delivery of new features or new systems? The easiest way is to just add the new features or replace the existing system, with no transition, but this is not the only approach. We’ll consider several strategies Continue reading Delivery Strategies
We’ll look at two refactorings suitable for conditional statements: Pull Up Common Head of Conditional and Pull Down Common Tail of Conditional. I originally learned these as performance optimizations but they also help simplify and clarify code. In Refactoring, Martin Continue reading Refactoring: Pull Common Code from Conditional
Electronic and Experimental Music (5/e), by Thom Holmes. Routledge, 2015. ISBN 113879273X. Holmes gives a full tour of electrical and electronic instruments, from the Teleharmonium and Theremin, tape recorders (for musique concrete), analog synthesizers, and digital and computer synthesizers. He also Continue reading Electronic and Experimental Music, by Thom Holmes (Review)
Rather than focusing on “splitting” a story, figure out a minimal form of a story, and intensify it – make it more powerful or desirable. We’ll explore one dimension, prediction: how can we make a story better by improving how the Continue reading Intensifying Stories Through Prediction
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage is volume 1 of a new trilogy set in the world of His Dark Materials (by Philip Pullman). This volume takes place before the events in the other series, with some overlap of characters. Continue reading The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage (Review)
We implement feature by feature, seeking value; adding up the value forms an S curve with characteristic regions. Can we overcome the tendency of products to fade away?
TDD – Test-Driven Development – is one of the tools people use to improve their programming. Many teams find that this discipline helps them reduce their defects. Could it make a difference to your team? Explore with this calculator.
In our final article in the series on testing graphics, we’ll look at testing internal objects (rather than testing at the display level). We’ll look at several decisions around testing.