Scott Densmore

The Power of Networks

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Review: Test Driving iOS Development with Kiwi

I have long been a fan of Test Driven Development (TDD). I have used all kinds of frameworks for doing my tests and for all of them have adopted the Act, Arrange, Assert pattern. I have looked into doing Behaviour-Driven Development and like the idea, just never found a framework that I was comfortable with and could use back and forth with unit testing. 

I have been using OCUnit that ships with Xcode to do my testing. I decided that I wanted to branch out. I had heard good things about Kiwi for doing BDD with iOS.  I decided that I should try it out. I normally I stick to the web and spelunking, yet this time I decided to buy a book on the subject: Test Driving iOS Development with Kiwi. This book is only available from the iBooks store.  

I have to say the book was worth every penny. I really thought it was a simple and easy introduction. It doesn't try and cover every nook of the framework, but it gives you enough information to get you started and how you can easily use it. It also takes advantage of the fact it works on the iPad: you get media built right into the book. Rather than just text walk throughs, you get video / slides of how to do things visually. I really love this new way of doing books. 

If you have never done or looking to do testing for you application (shame on you if you don't), you should really look into this book and Kiwi. I give it 5 stars!

Enjoy!

Hilos and Unit Testing in C++

Jason Zander's blog post on Unit Testing mentioned our Hilo project doing unit testing for Metro Applications in C++.

My Favorite Features: Unit Testing Enhancements in Visual Studio 11 

If you are really interested in this, download the code and check it out. We have to do some tricks to test Asyc methods, but since everything is async these days, you will probably find it useful.

If you have any feedback, leave it on the site so we can put this into future releases.

Enjoy!

How To Disable Home Button or Kiosk Mode

Disable Home Button or Kiosk Mode

Good to keep this in mind the next time someone asks me.

Hilo, C++, and PPL

We are making heavy use of the Parallel Programming Library in Native Code. I really love this. After our PPL books from last year, I have really been interested in this. One of our awesome team members, Thomas Petchel, has written up some intro material on our code displaying this. 

Enjoy

Another Hilo Release

We have done some major work on Hilo to get things in better shape. Right now we are waiting on the next release of Windows 8 and Visual Studio coming soon to make the final push before we call this done before RTM. Please go check out the code / docs and give us some feedback!

Enjoy!

Smoked by Windows Phone is Just Marketing

I am not a huge fan of the Windows Phone. It is a personal taste. I am not that into Metro. I keep seeing these things about being smoked by Windows Phone and it makes me sad. Are people really that gullible? Don't they realize that the person using the phone is an expert with the phone.  This is all they do. Do you really think the test is not rigged in every way to give the advantage to the Windows Phone? This reminds me of the quote from Princess Bride when Vizzini and the Man in Black go against each other:

Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...
Vizzini: [Vizzini stops suddenly, his smile frozen on his face and falls to the ground dead]
Buttercup: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.
Man in Black: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder.

I am pretty sure death is not on the line… just make sure you don't get fooled into not thinking for yourself.

Moore’s Law Falling Over

Silicon is eventually going to give up the ghost on how fast we can go.

Michio Kaku has a great explanation here.  Parallel Programming is one way to delay the process. I am really getting deep into this now with ppl and C++. It is my new favorite shiny toy!

When am I ever going to use this?

There was a question on stackoverflow on how to write an iOS app purely in C. Of course, anything is possible given time and money. The question is, why would I want to do this. Most of the time, you wouldn't, yet I don't think that is the lesson to learn here. It is not about mental gymnastics, it is understanding the system you live in.

When I was in school, most people in my math courses would always say "When am I ever going to use this?". I would say beyond most basic skills, I don't use much of the math that I learned (although it does come in handy helping the kids with their homework). When I do run into a problem that requires me to need something beyond the basics, I am glad that I at least know where to start looking. This is the same with programming. I don't write assembly, but sometimes in debugging, I don't have access to source and need to look at the output to see what is going on. I am glad that I took a course on debugging and got details on some of the x86 assembly calls. 

Most everything in programming is just another level of abstraction to make our lives easier (maybe). It is good to know how things work underneath the covers of your abstraction, although you don't have to be an expert. Go out and dig under the covers of your favorite platform and learn something new today. Maybe you can find a way to use it :).

Configuring TeamCity 7 to build your VS2010 .NET project using Git repository

You are using Continuous Integration, Unit Tests and Code Coverage aren't you? If not, shame on you.

Configuring TeamCity 7 to build your VS2010 .NET project using Git repository: 

(Via Southworks Blogs.)