This is the first article in a series about speech and language: Why are speech or language interfaces useful? What makes speech or language interfaces hard to create? Part 1: Overview What makes speech or langauge interfaces hard to create? Part 2: Speech What makes speech or language interfaces hard to create? Part 3: Language … Continue reading Why are speech or language interfaces useful?
Named parameters with default values can help unit tests
Introduction I find myself using default values much more in unit tests than in production code. That is, I do it more often, and use more parameters with defaults per method. This isn't because default values are bad, but they are often particularly useful when setting data up for unit tests. It makes the tests … Continue reading Named parameters with default values can help unit tests
Going a bit deeper with Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY)
DRY, or Don't Repeat Yourself, is a principle of software engineering. It makes code quicker and easier to understand and to change. For instance, instead of having the same chunk of code typed out twice or more, you carve it out into a method and then call it each time you need it. However, I … Continue reading Going a bit deeper with Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY)
From Excel to SSIS, Part 5: Joining streams of data
This article is part of a series: From Excel to SSIS Getting started File Save As (a kind of Hello, World! program for SSIS) Filtering rows Grouping and calculating Joining streams of data 0. Introduction This article will cover another very useful chunk of SSIS - joining streams of data together. Often the value of two bits … Continue reading From Excel to SSIS, Part 5: Joining streams of data
From Excel to SSIS, Part 4: Grouping and calculating
This article is part of a series: From Excel to SSIS Getting started File Save As (a kind of Hello, World! program for SSIS) Filtering rows Grouping and calculating Joining streams of data 0. Introduction Over the articles in the series, we have been gradually working our way towards useful and interesting SSIS code. So far we … Continue reading From Excel to SSIS, Part 4: Grouping and calculating
From Excel to SSIS, Part 3: Filtering rows
This article is part of a series: From Excel to SSIS Getting started File Save As (a kind of Hello, World! program for SSIS) Filtering rows Gouping and calculating Joining streams of data 0. Introduction This is the first article in the series where we will do something with the data as it flows through SSIS, rather … Continue reading From Excel to SSIS, Part 3: Filtering rows
From Excel to SSIS, Part 2: Hello, World!
This article is part of a series: From Excel to SSIS Getting started File Save As (a kind of Hello, World! program for SSIS) Filtering rows Gouping and calculating Joining streams of data 0. Introduction In the previous post I introduced SSIS and how to install it. In this post I will take you through … Continue reading From Excel to SSIS, Part 2: Hello, World!
From Excel to SSIS, Part 1: Getting started
This is the first in a series of posts introducing SSIS by showing how you can get it to do things that you probably already know how to do in Excel. Getting started File Save As (a kind of Hello, World! program for SSIS) Filtering rows Gouping and calculating Joining streams of data I won't … Continue reading From Excel to SSIS, Part 1: Getting started
Single Responsibility Principle for Automated Tests
I was writing some unit tests last week for a controller in an MVC application. As part of this I had to create a view model to pass to it, and inside the controller this was used to create a model. I had previously spent a bit of time writing unit tests for the conversion … Continue reading Single Responsibility Principle for Automated Tests
Automated testing of a website: Dealing with the database
This article proposes an approach to handling the fine-grained parts of the database parts of an automated system test of something like a website. You would need other things for the remaining jobs: To orchestrate the test, something like SpecFlow; To interact with the website, something like Selenium; To do the bulk updates to the … Continue reading Automated testing of a website: Dealing with the database
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