Posts filed under “Software Development”
Asynchronous Callback Functions in FlexUnit
FlexUnit provides support for asynchronous testing with the Async class. While this class works well for event driven tests, it doesn’t support callback functions like you might want it to. A typical event driven asynchronous test looks like this:
Excellent Book on Software Development
Just want to quickly point out an excellent reading for all software developers, architects, team leads or project managers: »Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are not the Point« by Mary and Tom Poppendieck. Although there is a chapter about technical excellence that covers architecture, TDD, evolutionary development etc., you won’t any code in it (a [...]
Faster parallel MXMLC compilation using Ant
Whenever you have a Flex project consisting of several modules, you can take advantage of compiling those modules in parallel – provided that they don’t depend on each other – using Ant and the Ant-Contrib tasks. In a project with five modules, I’ve seen a speed increase of about 30% compared to normal sequential compilation. [...]
Better Tests with Test Data Builders
When developing applications, often you need to set up some dummy data to test things without using real backend services. One particularly useful technique is described by Freeman and Pryce in their book »Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests«: Using the builder pattern to construct complex test data and improve code readability. Let’s say you [...]
Demystifying Kanban and Scrum
»Do not develop an attachment to any one weapon or any one school of fighting.« (Miyamoto Musashi) – this is directly cited from a very readable free pdf book by Henrik Kniberg & Mattias Skarin about two popular agile practices: Kanban and Scrum. Not only do the authors compare Kanban and Scrum to each other, [...]
Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering
Interesting article about “Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts about Software Engineering” on the IEEE website.
CommunityCommands: Command Recommendations for Software Applications
Actually, this should be one of my recent “Paper of the Month” posts but I’m not really fond of that title and the structure of my past posts any more. I’m going to keep on presenting new papers, which I find interesting and worthwhile, in a more informal style from now on (in software terms: [...]
Design by Contract framework for Flex development?
On InfoQ, there’s an interesting presentation by Greg Young on how Design by Contract (DBC) and Test Driven Development (TDD) can be combined and complement each other. Using a Microsoft framework for API contracts, he talks about how DBC can be used to eliminate a large number unit tests by setting up constraints in your [...]
“Flash Engineering” – A book about software engineering with the Flash Platform
Recently, the book “Flash Engineering” by Sven Busse (2009) has been published. While it is currently only available in German, English speakers might still want to read on, since it is quite unique compared to other books relating to that technology. I don’t know if an English version is being planned (if not, it would [...]
What is your level in the “Programmer Competency Matrix”?
Somehow I’ve came across the “Programmer Competency Matrix” – a table that shows the author’s expectations and requirements for different levels of skills in terms of computer science, software engineering, programming, experience and knowledge. The matrix is clearly geared towards “classic” software development and I believe a matrix for RIA developers, for example, would have [...]
Older posts from this category»