Best practices
-
I have been working on a VB Web App for the last few months ( pity please ). We have moved from .Net 1.1 to 2.0 and split it into a 3-layer architecture - all good things :) The company has seen the light and is willing to invest in current best practices to create a more robust ( reliable and scalable ) product, and to reduce lifecycle costs. So my question is: What do people use / recommend? We have decided to write unit tests - for the existing code and to enable TDD for future work, but I only know about NUnit and MbUnit and development seems to have stopped on both of these. So what are people using for a unit test framework nowadays? Reasonable costs are acceptable ( so Team System is not )...
---------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
Nicholas Butler wrote:
I only know about NUnit and MbUnit and development seems to have stopped on both of these.
Not so. Although MbUnit seems to be progressing slowly. I did spot a 2.3 RC2 that's recent though. I've never used MbUnit. Which do you think is better?
Kevin
-
Missed that :doh: Thanks for the heads-up Anna. Does anyone have any war-stories about NUnitAsp?
---------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
Anytime. I lurk on the TDD Yahoo Group, so I heard about it quicker than most. ;)
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
-
I have been working on a VB Web App for the last few months ( pity please ). We have moved from .Net 1.1 to 2.0 and split it into a 3-layer architecture - all good things :) The company has seen the light and is willing to invest in current best practices to create a more robust ( reliable and scalable ) product, and to reduce lifecycle costs. So my question is: What do people use / recommend? We have decided to write unit tests - for the existing code and to enable TDD for future work, but I only know about NUnit and MbUnit and development seems to have stopped on both of these. So what are people using for a unit test framework nowadays? Reasonable costs are acceptable ( so Team System is not )...
---------------------------- Be excellent to each other :)
Nicholas Butler wrote:
Reasonable costs are acceptable ( so Team System is not )...
Two alternatives are: CrusiseControl.NET (free) TeamCity (much cheaper than VSTS) http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/[^] Had a little experience with the former but not the latter.
Kevin
-
I've never understood the appeal of pair programming. I couldn't think of anything more boring than watching someone else code or more annoying than having someone looking over my shoulder.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
I've never understood the appeal of pair programming. I couldn't think of anything more boring than watching someone else code or more annoying than having someone looking over my shoulder.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
I think the practice was brought about by Junior programmers looking over the shoulder of Senior programmers. Then they swap positions and let the Junior programmer have go, under the watchful eye of the senior programmer. The probably developed a sucessful app, and it became practice.
-
I've never understood the appeal of pair programming. I couldn't think of anything more boring than watching someone else code or more annoying than having someone looking over my shoulder.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
I think pair programming would come in handing during debugging, short code bursts and complex code, but for just plain generic coding, I think it would be overkill.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: Vista for Web Development, Read this first! Latest Tech Blog Post: USA City Burnt To Death...
-
I've never understood the appeal of pair programming. I couldn't think of anything more boring than watching someone else code or more annoying than having someone looking over my shoulder.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
For simple programming tasks its a waste imho. But for more challenging applications it can have its advantages.
Todd Smith
-
Tim Craig wrote:
I've never understood the appeal of pair programming
The main advantage of pair programming is knowledge transfer. It isn't something that I see happening constantly throughout a project but on an occasional basis. The idea is fairly simple. Someone has been working on part of a project and someone else needs to know what's what in order to integrate their code. The pairing then works on the idea of least qualified implements. The person who needs to know sits at the keyboard while the knowledgable person talks them through. If they hit any stumbling blocks they both work through it together. This means that if the "someone else" has to change part of the original code there are at least two people that know about it and it doesn't come as a surprise to the guy who wrote the code originally. This works fairly well if taken on a case-by-case basis.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Someone has been working on part of a project and someone else needs to know what's what in order to integrate their code.
I haven't seen pair programming characterized this way. However, if you need to integrate your code with mine, my code should be documented and written so you should be able to understand it. If it isn't, that's the main problem. If you have specific problems or questions as to how to do your integration, come to me and we can discuss it but don't make me sit there for hours watching you fumble with the keyboard. (Assuming you type like most of the programmers I've seen. ;P )
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
Do you know any company actually do "pair programming"?? I've seen in my past career many "double programming" in which one developer do two persons job but "pair programming"... no.
Norman Fung
norm wrote:
Do you know any company actually do "pair programming"??
No, I've never seen it actually done. I've only read about it in the trade rags. As I said, it's always seemed like it would be either boring or annoying depending on which side of the keyboard you're on. And if I'm there nodding off, I'm not contributing to the quality. I'm just more than doubling the cost.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
I think the practice was brought about by Junior programmers looking over the shoulder of Senior programmers. Then they swap positions and let the Junior programmer have go, under the watchful eye of the senior programmer. The probably developed a sucessful app, and it became practice.
ednrgc wrote:
I think the practice was brought about by Junior programmers looking over the shoulder of Senior programmers.
But it's not billed as a mentoring method. It's being sold as two peers writing the same code.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
I think pair programming would come in handing during debugging, short code bursts and complex code, but for just plain generic coding, I think it would be overkill.
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: Vista for Web Development, Read this first! Latest Tech Blog Post: USA City Burnt To Death...
A lot of value comes from interacting with your peers on tricky things. If you stick your nose only in your code and never look up, you're going to miss learning a lot. And, yes, for very specific things it might be helpful if you're both sitting at the same computer. I agree that for 99% of the time it's vast overkill if you have competent people.
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Someone has been working on part of a project and someone else needs to know what's what in order to integrate their code.
I haven't seen pair programming characterized this way. However, if you need to integrate your code with mine, my code should be documented and written so you should be able to understand it. If it isn't, that's the main problem. If you have specific problems or questions as to how to do your integration, come to me and we can discuss it but don't make me sit there for hours watching you fumble with the keyboard. (Assuming you type like most of the programmers I've seen. ;P )
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
Tim Craig wrote:
However, if you need to integrate your code with mine, my code should be documented and written so you should be able to understand it.
If you look at the forums you will see that a lot of developers don't even read the documentation for the framework they are working with. I don't see how they are going to read in-house documentation which probably hasn't been through the same review process and is often written by someone who would rather get back to coding. You could look at it another way, which is short term mentoring.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
-
Tim Craig wrote:
However, if you need to integrate your code with mine, my code should be documented and written so you should be able to understand it.
If you look at the forums you will see that a lot of developers don't even read the documentation for the framework they are working with. I don't see how they are going to read in-house documentation which probably hasn't been through the same review process and is often written by someone who would rather get back to coding. You could look at it another way, which is short term mentoring.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
If you look at the forums you will see that a lot of developers don't even read the documentation for the framework they are working with.
So the solution is to include one of the developers in the box to explain it to them? ;P
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
I don't see how they are going to read in-house documentation which probably hasn't been through the same review process and is often written by someone who would rather get back to coding.
Well, now you've hit the real problem. Most developers are willing to put out the effort to practice their profession properly. Is it better to spend half a day properly documenting something or half a day spoon feeding every idiot who wants to use it. And, oh by the way, when that developer leaves because he smells a better opportunity across the road, who's going to explain it to the masses?
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
-
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
If you look at the forums you will see that a lot of developers don't even read the documentation for the framework they are working with.
So the solution is to include one of the developers in the box to explain it to them? ;P
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
I don't see how they are going to read in-house documentation which probably hasn't been through the same review process and is often written by someone who would rather get back to coding.
Well, now you've hit the real problem. Most developers are willing to put out the effort to practice their profession properly. Is it better to spend half a day properly documenting something or half a day spoon feeding every idiot who wants to use it. And, oh by the way, when that developer leaves because he smells a better opportunity across the road, who's going to explain it to the masses?
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.
Tim Craig wrote:
And, oh by the way, when that developer leaves because he smells a better opportunity across the road, who's going to explain it to the masses?
The idea is that the masses already know by that point becuase they've sat through it.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
-
Tim Craig wrote:
And, oh by the way, when that developer leaves because he smells a better opportunity across the road, who's going to explain it to the masses?
The idea is that the masses already know by that point becuase they've sat through it.
Upcoming Scottish Developers events: * Glasgow: Tell us what you want to see in 2007 My: Website | Blog | Photos
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
The idea is that the masses already know by that point becuase they've sat through it.
So the information trickles down by word of mouth from generation to generation. With bits lost and modified with each telling. And pretty soon we have a ..... religion. :doh:
The evolution of the human genome is too important to be left to chance.