Resource Links #3

Developer Links

• Single Responsibility Principle: (PDF) There should never be more than one reason for a class to change. This principle has got to be one of the most important principles in software engineering. This is written by Bob C. Martin who is also the author of the Craftsman series and other articles.
• Extract till you drop: Another great resource on Object Mentor on how far to refactor code and when is a refactoring complete.
• BDD Test Framework Part 2: In my last post I posted a link for the first part of this series.
• TDD for GUI Code: Have you ever had the nightmare of maintaining NUnitForm tests? How about doing things the right way – the software engineering best practices way. This article emphasizes on adapting TDD with GUIs.
• The Humble Object: Continuing from the previous link, its really hard to extract logic from the UI code and then test the logic code. Obviously we’re not the first one to come across this problem and it lies in the category of Test Design Patterns (See below for the book of the week). In Humble object pattern, we extract the logic into a separate easy-to-test component that is decoupled from the environment. 
• Debug.Assert vs Exceptions: Though quite debatable with Java aficionados, its still a good read. Also follow these threads on StackOverflow.
• Visual Studio Text Editor Themes: Bored of the same old visual studio theme? Ever wanted to make it look like you want it to but never could? Scott Hanselman has collected a set of such themes that you can download and apply. Checkout my theme that i picked from them on the right.
• Observer Design Pattern and Event Pattern in C#: This is an excellent article on the very useful Observer design pattern and how C#.NET incorporates this pattern as a first class language feature as Events.
  
  
  
  

  Technology Links

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  Multi-Threading in .NET: On when to use System.Threading.Thread, System.Threading.ThreadPool and System.Component.BackgroundWorker or delegates invoked in async fasion.
• Windows UX Guildelines: Microsoft has released a new guidelines document that covers Windows 7. A must read for any UX (User eXperience) developer.
• Using Markov Chains to generate Test Input: Markov Chains allow you to generate contextual yet pseudo-random values, where next value depends on the previous ones. This has an interesting application for developing Test cases.
• Effective A/B Testing: Do you develop UI interface? Does your user always like them? See how A/B Testing has fine tuned the way we get users to converge on a design.
• What’s new in BCL 4.0: See what’s new in .NET Framework 4.0’s Base Class Library. .NET 4.0 is expected to release by the end of this year together with Visual Studio 2010.
• Interview with Anders Hejlsberg:  Hejlsberg is the Chief language strategist at Microsoft and is one of the prime designers of C#.NET. In this talk he highlights different influences on C# from different languages like Delphi. He also discusses an informal roadmap for C#.
• Development Trends in Emerging Software Markets: See how the development trends are evolving in the emerging markets of south Asia and Asia.
• Office 2010 Web Preview: Microsoft offers a preview of the latest and sexiest Office 2010 web. If Microsoft can roll it out in time and ‘free’, I think it will give a hard time to Google Docs.
  Microsoft Launches the CodePlex Foundation which will be a link between open source and other developer community.
  
  

Business/Career/Management Links

• How to ruin brainstorm sessions : See how you can totally blow off a otherwise potential brainstorm session. Read the DO-NOTs of brain storm sessions.
• Was Bill Gates a risk taker? : Read the oft-un-quoted and oft-unheard story of Bill Gates and how he was not really a spontaneous risk taker.

Other useful Links

Are you a developer? Are you getting adequate sleep? Do you sleep comfortably at night? Do you feel fresh 9-6? If not then you need to find the root cause and fix it. Sleep helps in a lot of natural processes, especially memory retention, concentration and others. Take this BBC Quiz to asses your sleep deprivation level and read this article for more information.

Book of the Week

xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code by Gerard Meszaros

I'm a slow reader these days but I'm almost half way through this book. An excellent resource for software engineers and other IT professionals who develop software for a living. Having unit tests cover 100% code is a dream - but this book starts from that dream because beyond that is a nightmare :). Nightmare of re-factoring test code when your actual code changes. Over time several design patterns have emerged in software testing and test code re-factoring as well and this book is the ultimate resource for that.

Till next week,
Ciao.
- Zaki