Exploring Extreme Programming
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was cursed: her prophecies would be right, but nobody would believe her. Unfortunately, software teams are sometimes in the same position: they identify an upcoming problem, but can’t convince others that it needs to be addressed. Continue reading Cassandra Teams
Exceptions are one of the most complicated constructs in many languages. Because of that, testing exceptions is one of the harder tests to do. Consider the following code. Assume block1 through block3 are straight-line code, each ending with a statement Continue reading Testing Exceptions: Harder Than It Looks
How should we handle error conditions? We’ll look at the try-catch exception mechanism that’s similar across many languages, and a few patterns and pitfalls for working with it. Old-School One way of handling errors is for a method to have Continue reading Spooky Action at a Distance: Exceptions
Here are the the articles and videos I made last year. Key topics: user stories, refactoring, TDD, functional languages, and design. I’ve grouped them into these areas: My favorites: Want More?Have you found these articles useful or want more? * Continue reading 2021 Articles in Review
Immutability is the idea that once created, data never changes. Why might we want this? Avoid aliasing bugs: Aliasing occurs when there are multiple ways to access the same piece of data, and one piece changes it in a way Continue reading Immutable Objects
I recall a game design challenge where your only input is a pushbutton. What if your only input is a single textfield? Let’s look at what search engines have done under this limitation. That can give us ideas for intensifying Continue reading Intensifying Stories with Limited Input
Loop unrolling is a performance optimization where you repeat the inside of a loop to reduce the looping overhead. It’s also a way to get rid of loops, and we’ll look at an example from a test. While ⇒ If-While Continue reading Loop Unrolling: While ⇒ If-While
Functional languages often have immutable data types – you can’t change an object once you’ve created it, though you can include it as part of other objects. Immutable objects are easier to reason about, and prevent errors where two parts Continue reading Queues from Stacks: Functional Data Types
Refactoring improves the design of code without changing its observable behavior. But what is observable behavior? We’ll look at how language semantics affect that. When you devise new refactorings, you have to take semantics into account. The Simple View is Continue reading Refactoring and Programming Language Semantics
Coupling occurs when one part of a system depends on another part. That is, if one part changes, the other must be adjusted too. Lambda expressions can reduce coupling by needing to refer to fewer things. Dependencies on Objects Consider Continue reading Lambda to Reduce Coupling