"Way to Commit Soldier!"

I'm not a soldier, but that is one of the funnier lines in Madagascar 3.

The pertinent quote begins about 35 seconds in, but this whole scene is what I would call "high comedy".

I do however, want to commit, especially when it comes to committing more code that is. For 13 of the last 14 days, I've made at least one commit to projects I'm working on under Github. I want better programming skills. I believe that the best way to become a better programmer is to read code every day, and write code every day. Sometimes, the code I write isn't very complicated. Saturday I restructured the way I had some test steps written in a code library that will serve as the math problem generation engine for an application I'm developing for my kids. It wasn't very complicated, didn't change the world, but my habits were shaped into a design where such a refactor becomes automatic in the next code library. Other projects I've been working on are an effort to track student reading habits that reports out to a spreadsheet, and a ruby gem that serves as a wrapper for the EBird API.
I'm practicing and learning several different things at once. In my own code libraries, I'm practicing how to develop using the  "Red, Green, Refactor" methodology of cucumber and RSpec. I'm also learning how to write tests that make sense for code libraries that already exist, and I'm learning how to upgrade a library with the latest implementation of that library's methods and objects.
In short, I'm having fun, lots of challenging fun. It's the sort of fun that leads to more and better opportunities for employment and personal development. Committing every day reminds me of what I love about programming, each solution to a program is a unique implementation of patterns, and I love those patterns. It's like the rotunda in Beethoven's works, not the same, but the same is there when he gets around to it. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 5:

  18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot.  19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God.

 I hope your work helps you find enjoyment. I know what little bit of programming I do at work helps me enjoy my job. I know it encourages me to seek out further skill so I can advance and enjoy it even more. Committing code every day shows me the enjoyment of my toil, and I believe there's nothing better you can do than enjoy whatever it is you are doing.

RSpec Book is Out!

Yays!
I bought this book like forever ago, and it's finally in print!
I want to say that so far I like the paper version as much as the electronic, and now that I basically only have one computer it makes following the examples in the book so much easier.

If you are looking to learn behaviour driven development, and the tools behind it, pick it up!
enjoy!
ok,
I'll go back in my hole...

New Ubuntu, or My Meerkat be Maverick!

So I took some time Monday and installed the latest and greatest Ubuntu, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.
Let me say this,
I am getting tired of installing a new OS every Six months, lol.
That being said, Maverick Meerkat is pretty slick. I did a fresh install, completely wiping out my old system, although I did do quite a bit of copying my files from a backup once the installation was complete. Everything seems to run a little better now, I am using the "Proprietary" video driver, I haven't installed apache or Drupal. The machine is running smoothly, and cooler. The fans definately are not working as hard. Maybe they finally got flash right! I have installed ruby, from source, following the instructions I previously gave for Ubuntu 10.04. I didn't doubt they would still be valid, having done this long enough to understand when I stand a chance of changing something that will break everything else. Everything is in a different font than before. I don't understand how that makes things better, but I think it does. Somehow, I have convinced myself that the rounder looking font has made the electrons move faster, and therefore, boosted computer performance.

In a nutshell, I like it, but I'm tired of liking something every six months.
l8rz.

Ruby Foo and the Art of Application Development

Hmmmm,
I'm thinking about what it takes to write really good programs. I'm thinking about this a lot lately, because I want to earn a living writing really good, useful, soul searching programs. So let's talk about cucumber. I discovered cucumber about 10 months ago, right when it was starting to become usable. The team I was working with used cucumber for writing stories in their development cycle. The whole BDD/TDD development process was new (and still is new) to me at the time, but I was having fun, and it seemed to me that this cucumber thing was great fun. I had no idea what it really did.

I suppose you should be making fun of me, it's not after all, very reasonable to use a tool you understand nothing about, but I am a jump then look kinda guy when it comes to some things, and learning is one of them (sometimes). I did what any reasonable person does after discovering something shiny and nifty, I bought a book about it.

Actually, what I bought was a promise for a book, at a special discount. The simply named The Rspec Book is a great lil' book. It's not released yet, but it's in 'beta' mode. That means I get regular updates when Dave, or Aslak, or whoever updates the book. I got it round about version 4, it's on version 10 and set to release in it's final version in December of this year. I'll get a hard copy of the book once it's officially released too. Personally, I think that this is a great way to do publishing. Since this book was first announced/released, there have been several changes to the methodology of running cucumber and rspec. There have been minor syntax changes, new habits for namespacing, etc. The book remains current. I mean, it is seriously Agile (must be Italian)! It's easy to read if you are a n00b or if you are a wannabe (like me), and the support the guys give with the Rspec and Cucumber groups online is outstanding.

The book takes you on a journey through the methodology of Acceptance test driven planning, Domain Driven Design, and Test Driven Development. This triad forms the basis for Behavior Driven Development (BDD), a system by which good software 'emerges' from the process by writing the code that answers the questions users ask.

I'll leave you with that for now.
I :heart: you guys.

G. Brandon Hoyt