Introduction In a previous post on how to allow Gherkin authors flexibility to write the lines of a scenario in whatever order made sense to them, I suggested deferring things as a mechanism for making this happen. The costs of doing this have become more apparent to me since I wrote that, so I think … Continue reading SpecFlow: To defer or not to defer
A German being funny and instructive about microservices
No posts for ages - sorry. I thought this was excellent in many ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tjziAQfNQ
Analysing a pack of Top Trumps
This is a bit of detail behind my previous post - Visualising a pack of Top Trumps. It has the Excel stuff behind the main graph, so if Excel isn't your thing I suggest you skip this and look at something else. Step 0 - data entry The first step was just creating a sheet … Continue reading Analysing a pack of Top Trumps
Visualising a pack of Top Trumps
Introduction In this post I analyse a pack of Top Trumps. I've long had an itch in my brain that it would be interesting to do this. Playing with several different packs as child, I built up an impression that there was a general pattern in the packs, and I wanted to see if this … Continue reading Visualising a pack of Top Trumps
Be careful when and what you automate
I have recently joined the Ministry of Testing Bloggers' Club, which aims to encourage its bloggers to blog, and to blog better. The first topic we've been suggested is a technical tip every tester should know. This seems a bit like Radio 4's Just a Minute, where you are given a topic and then have … Continue reading Be careful when and what you automate
An introduction to integers and floating point numbers
Integers on a computer are simple and behave in predictable ways. Floating point numbers are not and don’t always respectively – I’ll explain what they are and why below. Working with floating point numbers is also slightly like cleaning up after my dogs, which I will also explain below. Integers Integers are a bit like … Continue reading An introduction to integers and floating point numbers
Fault tolerance
Introduction I am slowly working my way through the 300+ back issues of the podcast Software Engineering Radio. I've got as far as a couple of excellent episodes on fault tolerance with Bob Hanmer. I recommend that you listen to them, even if (like me) you don't have to worry about this kind of thing … Continue reading Fault tolerance
Reading JSON in SQL Server 2016
Introduction There's a lot of this that I won't have time or space to cover, so for more information, I suggest you look at Microsoft's blog on SQL Server + JSON. What I will cover is the OPENJSON table-valued function, which lets you turn JSON text into a result set, i.e. rows and columns. One … Continue reading Reading JSON in SQL Server 2016
Balancing big picture and details when coding, testing and documenting
Introduction I very much hope that this avoids being a rant. I also hope it avoids being self-indulgently clever rather than being helpful. Finally, I understand that people learn in different ways; I think I like images and like to get the big picture before getting into detail. Other people like to be led along … Continue reading Balancing big picture and details when coding, testing and documenting
Single-step your code before you hit bugs
Introduction The habits or practices you adopt as a programmer influence your productivity and the quality of your output. The consequences of these practices can be good or bad, intended or unintended. After a brief stop off at the practice Test-Driven Development, I will go into another one: using a debugger to single-step your code … Continue reading Single-step your code before you hit bugs
Random Tech Thoughts 