Pervasive Code

If you’ve tried to use Machinist and autotest (part of ZenTest) you have probably seen this exception that prevented you from using it:

`method_missing': No sham defined for name

It’s discussed in the machinist Google Group as well.

It’s because of a wacky hack that’s part of Machinist that overrides Module.name so you can do Sham.name, but ZenTest expects Module.name to do what it does normally.

I have a fix for this.
Read the rest of this entry »

Now that I’ve worked in a team that really was doing XP (except for our Lack Of Onsite Customer shortcoming) I can say that it works pretty well, but only to the extent that you do all of the practices together. Of course, that’s what the XP folks said from the beginning: you can’t just apply 1% of it and make a judgement about it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Pair Programming is for 100% of production code, not 100% of your workday

Pair Programming is intense, mentally and physically. You need to take breaks, stretch, walk around, and hopefully go outside for sunshine and fresh air. Even so, 8 hours of solid pair programming is a very tiring day. That much pairing time may be appropriate now and then, but it isn’t physically sustainable.
Read the rest of this entry »

Technical Debt and Cruft

There is a fundamental tension in software development between delivering something quickly now, and being able to deliver something quickly later. Over time, quick and dirty hacks pile up, and code becomes difficult to work with.
Read the rest of this entry »

Lack of Onsite Customer

This is a serious problem. Your project exists to serve somebody, and your success is directly proportional to understanding what they want, so that you can build it. You need as much communication bandwidth between the programmers and those people as possible.
Read the rest of this entry »