Behind Bars: Surviving Prison
Just thought that I owed an explanation about all those prison comments.
I work at a prison (not entirely vulentary :-D) and I'm on the right (whatever that means) side of the bars.
Currently it's been 3 years, 1.5 months and counting...
P.S.
Apperantely, there is a book by that name at amazon: Behind Bars: Surviving Prison
Pragmatic Shelf
An update to my reading list:
The pragmatic bookshelf is an excelent resource for any developer.
I recently finished Pragmatic Project Autumation and it was... englighting.
I wonder when I can get a lava lamp and the Fire Starter that I can use in Israel...
My.Toolbox.ListAll()
Some tools of the trade that I'm going to take with me to prison today:
- SubVersion - Version Control - “The better CVS.“
- MbUnit - Unit Testing Framework - Everything but the kitchen sink.
- NAnt - Automatic build tool - “The better Make.“
- CodeSmith - Code generation tool - I used it to build the data access layer & low level bussiness logic layer, and it is fantastic (here is the template). You can do anything with this.
- SourceGrid - The most flexible grid control that I've seen.
- Cassini - A personal web server {localhost only} that is great when you need to test web code or run web applications without the hurdle of managing IIS.
- log4net - Highly flexible logging framework.
- Weifen Luo's DockManager - WinForms component for VS.Net's like UI
- XP Explorer Bar - A component that mimics the Explorer's bar on XP. Work on non-standard themes as well.
- Resharper - I've already mentioned in another post.
- VS.Net 2003 - Nothing to add here.
Tools that I want to use but just didn't have the time so far:
- NMock or DotNetMock - Always used NUnit's mock, but I'm only now getting serious on TDD
- CruiseControl.Net - I know how to use it, I just never seemed to be able to get to the point where I would start it.
Resharper - impressions
I tried resharper in the past, and wasn't very impressed. It seems to be a nice tool to have, but nothing that I didn't already had in VS.Net.
I tested it again now that it matured, and I was mistaken. Big time!
It seems to me that there is this benign entity standing over my shoulder and points out all the problem with the code.
On the fly error detection, Live Templates, intellegent code completion and variable names suggestions.
That is to say nothing about the Refactoring support, which I've not tried yet.
I'd some troubles installing & using it, and I must say that the support is both fast and impressive.
Go get it.
http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/index.html
Reading list
It seems popular lately, to share whatever books one is reading.
Here are mine:
Development books:
-
Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET - This one seems to be required, so I got it, and I'm very pleased about it. -
Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
Fun books:
-
The Book of Taltos - Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos seria. An amazingly well written set of books. -
Dime Store Magic : Women of the Otherworld - Another book by Kelly Armstrong, which is really fun to read. Especially if you've read her previous works BittenStolen, which are simply superb.
I want to learn a little about Domain Driven Design, can anyone recommend a good source for this? Preperably something that I can throw at the wall when I don't understand something.
Impressed with MbUnit
I've been in prison and only just got out, I'm returning tomorrow and I'm not sure when I'll be able to post again (hopefully on sunday).
[And no, I'm not kidding anyone, I'll explain later.]
Anyway, I've gotten really interested in Test Driven Design lately, and naturally, as all the books are about NUnit, I checked that out.
I really like what they are doing there, but...
I kept hearing about this and that that MbUnit does.
I'm currently reading the feature list on MbUnit Porject page and I'm very impressed with the capabilities.
I'm subscribed to Jonathan's blog and he's doing a lot of work.
For instance, you can check all types that implement an interface or a common base class using a single test and a couple of attributes.
I think that I'm going to move my testing platform to MbUnit.