Loosely Coupled Human Code Factory - A.K.A. Mercenary Engineer

ByRef, ByVal, COM Objects, and Excel

adron — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:42:29 GMT

I'm working on getting things into and out of Excel. In one scenario I copy an Excel Range or Rows from one Excel Worksheet to a Worksheet in another Workbook. This Workbook then acts as a storage repository for the Range of Rows and is saved and closed. Each of these Range of Rows are saved with a unique identifier on the row above the copied in Range of Rows. I then want to retrieve the Range of Rows to insert back into that Workbook's Worksheet in another location. I have...(read more)

Broken Unit Tests, Code Changes, and Refactoring

adron — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:34:31 GMT

So the build broke based on a unit test that failed. Is the general rule of thumb that the build breaking check in person fixes the test? What if they did something that broke someone else's test for something? ...hmm, the philosophy of project handling and management. Today I have nothing to proffer or offer the world of the blogosphere, merely that I'm exhausted and going to gladly jump on my bike and high tail it out of the office. Tomorrow is implement functionality and dependency...(read more)

Modern Computer Power Rulez!

adron — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:24:02 GMT

I was running three virtual machines on my laptop and couldn't help but think, this is awesome. I couldn't have imagined doing this 6-7 years ago. That is three operating systems running in virtual machines. Windows 2003, Windows XP, and of course Windows Vista. All running hosted on a Windows Vista Machine - my laptop. 2+ Ghz and 4 GB RAM on dual 7200 RPM 200GB Drives. Awesome to be able to work with such an environment....(read more)

I Love Excel...

adron — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:17:46 GMT

...and I hate it. Excel has a model, that seems to be broken all the time, and appears that there are a zillion ways to do things that are not a preferred way. The most common situation seems that Excel either breaks, crashes hard, eats up on the memory, or some other monstrous thing happens to cause a day to go south. But the reason I love Excel, and maybe it is the pack rat collector mentality I have sometimes is - you can put stuff in it. It isn't just putting stuff in it, but arranging,...(read more)

DI, IoC, and Loose Coupling

adron — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:28:42 GMT

Recently a situation were I needed to pull out the dependency injection and inversion of control skills came up again. The need for loose coupling in so many projects is vital to these patterns. I was going to start writing an article, but then realized there are some really amazing ones out there. They point out the reason for Separation of Concerns (SoC), Loose Coupling of UI Components, Controller Independence (free from proprietary UI code). With that said, here's some...(read more)

More Team City Tools Goodies

adron — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:27:18 GMT

The VS.NET integrated build monitor is great. This thing helps you keep track of your latest changes, the status of the build, and other information right at your fingertips. If you're using ReSharper and NUnit (or other integrated test framework) you get even more functionality. First just install the TeamCity Visual Studio Add-in Tool. You can find it under the "My Settings & Tools" section of the TeamCity Web Application. Make sure Visual Studio is closed. You...(read more)

Ole' Skool Meetingz :: Tip o' The Day

adron — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:42:49 GMT

A quick tip o' the day, that really has nothing to do specifically with software development - but is none the less a very good tip. Meetings can be awesome and useful, or they can be useless and wasteful at best. There are a couple reasons; Any meeting over 30 minutes is absolutely wasteful. Too much is happening and most will fall in the gutter by the time the next meeting comes around. Too many topics are being covered. Attack particular points that can and will be covered...(read more)

It's Friday, XKCD RULEZ!

adron — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:58:10 GMT

No point in getting all thought provoking, it is Friday. So go entertain yourself. http://xkcd.com Important Life Lesson Playing the Devil's Advocate to Win Shopping Teams...(read more)

Integration Test in a Build?

adron — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:56:38 GMT

Integration tests are dependant tests that go across boundaries; database to the data layer, UI to the client layer, Model Layer of the MVC to the Something Layer, and the list goes on. These tests are not something that can be added to a build solution without first getting the various segments actually "running". We then end up with several different issues; With the assumption that the unit tests pass, the integration tests should then fire. This is a fairly straight forward...(read more)

Source Control Best Practices List :: Tip o' The Day

adron — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:41:37 GMT

Subversion is in the entry title, but these really apply to just about any source control being used for almost any type of project. 1. Update every time a build is successfully completed on the server to assure you are using the latest and your code still builds locally. 2. Check in as frequently as possible. Every 30 minutes is a good standard. Make sure to get an update before hand to assure a good build before checking in. 3. When making edits that cause *.sln file changes make...(read more)

Source Control Etiquette :: Tip o' The Day

adron — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:58:58 GMT

Some more quick best practices for using source control. Simple Rule: Check in often, build often, and keep updated as frequently as you have code that builds. This prevents merge conflicts, overrides, and other goofy nonsense that no one wants to deal with. I would say it is a good idea to update every time a new successful build occurs on the build server. Commit (check in) every time new working code is completed. This should be every 30 minutes to an hour. If not, you're...(read more)

Visual SVN & Database Projects in VS.NET :: Tip o' The Day

adron — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:54:51 GMT

In Visual Studio 2008 when using Visual SVN there is a slight issue when using database projects. Visual SVN doesn't know to check in the database project file itself so it will lose the database project whenever a fresh checkout is done against the repository. So if you are using Visual SVN & VS.NET make sure to go into the actual directory structure and "Add" the database project file into the overall committed solution. Technorati Tags: Visual SVN,Visual Studio,VS.NET,VS,Subversion,Database...(read more)

Gun Toting Mercenaries...

adron — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:02:57 GMT

...Yeah Us, Get Out of Our Way We're Leading! Over the last few months I've worked through some projects that have a unique trait. The last time I worked in a scenario like this it was at Bank of America. At Bank of America some of the team was in Jacksonville, some where in Atlanta, others in Charlotte, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and a few more disparate locations. Looking back these were all amazingly efficient and well run projects. Today I lead these efforts in my off...(read more)

KISS, DRY, SOC, YAGNI, TDD...

adron — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:28:03 GMT

These are things to take to heart. If you aren't thinking, acting, and implementing based on these you WILL have issues. It will then lead to pulling your hair out (which I've already done), fussing, maybe screaming, being temperamental, getting bored, getting frustrated, and generally pushing one self to BURN OUT! Nobody wants that! So read up on these Wikipedia articles (yeah, these are concrete unlike the not so useful parts of Wikipedia, so I don't wanna hear any lip about...(read more)

Unit Testing Excel!!??!??! Are You Kidding!

adron — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:03:22 GMT

Nope, gotta do it. I went around and hit Google for some links. At this point the key links I've found are; Dennis van der Stelt's Entry - This one is ancient though (2005). From the comments of Dennis' Blog I found VBA Unit and... ...Richard Jones own link to VBA Unit. These later two items seem to cover a lot of ground for VBA Unit Testing of Excel. There is however a MAJOR problem. It is unit testing inside of Excel. This I don't really need, what I need is the...(read more)