Picked up working on a book on C++. It’s freely available (as I work on it) and a PDF is available here.

I needed to do some yard work. It’s nearly always windy in Oklahoma where I live, so when I got up Friday morning I noticed a distinct lack of wind and thought it would be a good idea to get started on the yard work. I was tired of getting dust, dirt and other unmentionable things in my eyes and ears and nose.

Things started as normal, but since I got started so early I took the time to clean up the west side of the house. Then I managed to rake and clean up a bit more. I pulled some weeds. Much of the work I did was not visible most of the time but it bothered me just a little. Then I got to the part of the job that was visible. I took a little extra time raking, sweeping, mowing, etc. I was “done” earlier than I had expected and then I made a crucial decision, it was time to take care of the bamboo.

Gradle is a build tool. Even though it is younger than Maven, I really like it and it shows decent maturity. Here’s one example of getting started using it: http://schuchert.wikispaces.com/gradle.GettingStarted

In the early 90’s, I taught classes in Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, as well as just Object Oriented Design and Programming in C++ and Smalltalk (Java didn’t exist yet). I got burnt out teaching both kinds of classes for different reasons.

The language classes were tough – more C++ than Smalltalk, because there was so much detail and I wanted to cover too much – notice the classic error that the instructor’s opinion is relevant to learning. Both classes were hard, though, because getting the ideas of Object Orientation across in addition to learning a language and an environment (in the case of Smalltalk) was a lot. That, coupled with a lack of discipline in not using some kind of unit testing framework was tough. (This last observation is based on my current observations of teaching similar language classes versus what I used to do last century.)

After a week in Israel and the UK, I got back to this series. I’ve switched to using XCode 4, but as it is not officially released, the videos I recorded using it were a bad idea to upload.

Back to XCode 3: http://www.vimeo.com/album/1472322

http://www.vimeo.com/album/1472322

Title says it all. Well, I’ll add that this was take #20 (or so). It’s rough getting back in to video recording mode. I will do more in this series.

And I barely know Objective-C, so as the series progresses, I’ll expect some help on better practices.

I often get asked to provide background materials on TDD and Pair Programming.

Here are a few I often cite, but can you point me to some more? Are there any that you particularly like/dislike?

I’m finally getting back to iPhone development. The environment is taking some getting used to and it took me some time to get to a reasonable working environment.

I’m starting to document that. I plan to have both written and video tutorials. For now, I’ve got some rough notes put together. Have a look and feedback is appreciated: http://schuchert.wikispaces.com/iPhone.SettingUpTheEnvionment

I’ve put what I’ve been writing up, available for free. Not sure if I’ll ever try to get it published dead-tree form.

http://schuchert.wikispaces.com/cpptraining.CppAndOodTheLeastYouNeedToKnow

Feedback appreciated.

Have a great weekend.

Here it is a over a year after I wrote several FitNesse tutorials. Several months back Bob added some new ways to write scenarios using a placeholder syntax and an alternative way to render script tables. What you end up with is something just a little less table-like.

This is a very quick and dirty writeup I’ve been meaning to put together for nearly half a year. So while it’s not pretty, it works, shows the basics and may make you aware of something you didn’t know was there – unless you’ve been reading the release notes.

Alternative Script Table Syntax

Comments and requests welcome.

Brett