Category Archives: Other Blogs

Martin Fowler on doing painful things more often

Posted on July 28, 2011 by wfwalker

In this post entitled “FrequencyReducesDifficulty”, Martin Fowler explains why doing painful things more often reduces the pain. Think pushups, cleaning the catbox, refactoring ugly code, and integrating multiple subsystems.

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Legacy code is like unwanted inventory?

Posted on May 19, 2011 by wfwalker

In this May 2011 post, Michael Feathers asks us to consider the cost of carrying around all that legacy code, making an analogy with how lean manufacturing folks become more efficient by reducing the amount of stuff they have lying … Continue reading →

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Michael Feather’s next book

Posted on April 26, 2011 by wfwalker

Ever since I first discovered Michael Feather’s “Working Effectively with Legacy Code” I’ve been a huge fan. I find it both inspiring and a great book to teach from. While catching up on his blog this morning, I read that … Continue reading →

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TDGotchi!

Posted on April 15, 2011 by wfwalker

I heard about this from @ralekseenkov. TDGotchi is an Eclipse plug-in that creates a virtual pet, like the old Tamagotchi, except that this one doesn’t thrive on simulated feedings. It thrives on watching you fix failing unit tests and do … Continue reading →

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Mark Pilgrim on “Why Specs Matter”

Posted on March 24, 2011 by wfwalker

In this timeless essay about how developers typically approach implementing a standard or specification, Mark Pilgrim mercilessly divides us developers into Morons and Assholes. I imagine you don’t want to chose one or the other, but after reading what he … Continue reading →

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Michael Feathers on “Data-Rich Development”

Posted on March 23, 2011 by wfwalker

In his recent post “Data-Rich Development”, Michael Feathers talks about supplementing the recent emphasis on incremental design through TDD with a longer-term perspective gained through analyzing changes to the codebase over time. As a budding source code miner myself, I … Continue reading →

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