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Start with a Unit Test
Not everyone is a fan of test-driven development. Writing unit tests for your code can be a laborious task, and it has no immediate benefit to your customers. So why waste any time writing the tests, right? This past week, a colleague of mine summed up the problem pretty well: I’ve finished writing the code for that […]
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Dependency Injection and Abstract Interfaces in C#
If you’ve ever written code, you’ve probably written a unit test. If you haven’t written unit tests, you should start. Now. Really. Unit tests let you quickly verify that your code is operating in a predictable fashion. When you make changes down the road, you re-run the same unit tests to make sure nothing broke. […]
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You Have an Opinion?
When I write software, I ask for people’s opinions. Then, I either listen to what they have to say or I don’t. Some people are very adamant about certain features, options, or use cases. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I ignore them entirely. It’s nothing personal. I have opinions about certain applications that should be ignored […]
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URLs and UX
I despise broken links. Most of the sites I read on a daily basis are littered with links to this site or that site. Many of them are written quickly to get news stories out promptly and, as a result, are published with typos. It’s one thing when I catch a typo in body content […]
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Happy Hunger Games
I love a good story. Drama. Action. Romantic comedy. Tragedy. Fiction or non-fiction. It doesn’t really matter. We communicate through stories, and the best stories can connect perfect strangers in ways conversation or common ground never could. Last night I had the opportunity to attend the midnight release of The Hunger Games. I’ve read the series, […]
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Playing Nice With Others
Below is the video of my WordCamp Phoenix 2012 presentation. Please, be nice 🙂 [wpvideo FvBt5PpI w=600 h=380]
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Once Upon a Time
When I was 6, I wanted to be an architect. I loved drawing, enjoyed visiting cool buildings, and had the odd drive to be a part of something bigger. I checked books out from the library, talked up the idea with adults, and even took a crack at drawing up blueprints for the first house […]
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Free and Open
I write software for a living. Not something I ever expected to do for a career, but it happened and I’m fairly good at it. I also write software as a hobby. Different languages and platforms – working with a diverse set of tools makes me a better developer. I also give away most of the […]
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I’m Building a Cathedral!
Last month I read a fantastic business book, Start with Why, by Simon Sinek. It’s a great piece that works you through discovering and illustrating the purposes behind your business. Not what you do or how you do it, but why you do what you do. The best illustration in the book exposes a juxtaposition between two different work […]
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Data versus Meaning
At a conference last week, I was subjected to all kinds of talks on data, data integrity, data storage, data in the cloud, and data-centered design patterns. One speaker summed things up perfectly: If you make the center of your world data, then everything else becomes easy. This got me thinking. From a computer-centric viewpoint it all […]