TDD sucks when not everyone is doing it

I now understand Ryan's frustration better when we were working on AudioMan now. He was all for TDD, and it's easy to agree that it's a good thing and that you should do it, it's quite another to actually believe it and drink the kool-aid (which Ryan's commented on a couple of times).

I have to admit that in the last little while I have strayed from the path, and I regret doing that now for even a couple of minutes. Tests are not something that you can easily add in later. Well, not good tests. One of the reason that I like unit tests is that I can "see" the different paths that things can take easier. When using any kind of UI I tend to do it the exact same way, every time. This isn't great if you are doing UI functional testing, because you're only hitting part of it every time, instead of a consistent path, all of the time.

I think that I really have to harp on my co-worker for doing test first, I think that I have to show it to him really... I have to find a better way to address it I think. Ah well. We'll see how things go.

Listening to: K's Choice - Not an addict (acoustic)

When do you tell your boss you're leaving

I was talking to a friend of mine today and they have a problem. They applied for a job like 14 months ago and just recently found out that they got the job (long approval process). They are stressed because they are not sure when they should tell their boss. Do they tell them now before they have anything in writing, or should they tell the boss only when they get a job offer in writing?

My advice to the person was to wait till they get something in writing because I don't trust verbal agreements: they are worth the same as the paper they are written on. But this means they are going to give their boss only 2 weeks notice. Do they trust the verbal agreement and tell their boss asap, or do they wait till they get something in writing? What do you think?

Listening to: Swollen Members - Bad Dreams

Keeping perspective

At times during work I get stressed out. We might not be able to meet deadlines, we have dependencies on other groups and I am unsure if they will be on time, issues with our customers, people getting sick...

I talked to my co-worker and about a conversation he had with his wife. She simply asked "why are you getting stressed out?" Yes, why am I? As much as I like to talk big about Software Engineering and how people's lives depend on good sw, that's not true for what I am working on right now. No one will die if my web app is late or has bugs. And what's the worst that can happen? I can get fired. So what.

It's not worth getting stressed out. It's just a job and nothing more. It's not me. I do care if my project fails, but if I does, it doesn't really impact a whole lot of people in a serious way. My drive to work has more wide ranging implications on people's lives than what I am doing. My job is just to provide experience and money for my life. That's where I am getting the money to put gas into my car, buy people dinner, and buy a kayak for myself.

There are SO many more important jobs in the world such as doctors, nurses, parenting and teachers. I just have to keep on reminding myself that the stress from work is not worth my health, not even close. I think that when I can keep perspective all of the time, I will be where I want to be in life.

Listening to: Joan Osborne - What if God Was One Of Us

Spring Convocation 2004

Since my mom has been bugging me for months to figure this out, and it took me a good 1/2 hour to find the info on U of O's site, I just thought that I would post it. Spring Convocation for us is Sunday, June 6, 2:30 p.m (Ceremony II) at the NAC. I guess that I don't have to take time off work like I thought that I would.

Well, it's very soon in some ways, and far away in others. I was just counting the the months (on my fingers) and it is almost the time to go back to school if I was on co-op. Strange. I thought that I would be sick of work and get all antsy at this time of year. I don't miss school at all really. I guess that I might in a couple of years, but right now I am having too much fun and am far too busy to want to go back to school now.

On a slightly different note, Kibbee linked to a really interesting article about why nerds are unpopular. It was a good read, if long. I don't totally agree about some of the things that he says, but the thing that I found was the most interesting was how teenagers create their own "society" because they don't have any real purpose to what they are doing. To me that implies that if they are given a task to work toward, a lot of crap (socially) that people go through wouldn't happen anymore. I guess that makes sense when you think of the expression: the idle hands gather no moss. So true. ;-)

Listening to: John Lennon - Imagine (acoustic version)

Passwords for chocolate

Some specific people came to mind when I read a slashdot story about how people would give up their passwords for chocolate. It just goes to show what most people know: that we have to know too many passwords and we need a better way because people don't use strong enough passwords. This isn't really a technology issue, but a social one. I am sure that it will be easier to come up with a tech solution to this, but that is by no means easy.

Getting things to where I want them

It sounds really dumb, but it can be a lot of work to get things to a point where you feel comfortable. Right now I'm trying to do that with my computer. As I've talked about before, I now have the space that I want: a lot. My only complaint now is that I'm moving a lot of data over a small pipe: USB 1.1. Well, honestly that's something that I always bitch about, slow modem, not enough space, slow transfer speeds, ... Just ignore it. I'm just venting.

Now, when I get everything on the drive as I want, I'll be able to do things like re-rip or re-tag songs as needed; weed out the bad songs; get rid of ones that I have in there a couple of times; be aware of the ones that I have the original songs for and ones that I do not. But mostly, it's to get stuff off my computer so I'm not so squished for space, yet still be able to enjoy music. Now what I'm going to do is find all the music in my house and put it on that drive. That way I'll be able to wire a home sound system (eventually) that will run off a hard disk and play pleasant music in the background. That's my goal. We'll see how the journey goes.

Listening to: the sound of my hd and dvd drive transferring mp3's. Oh the joy!

Changing posts

One of the good things about the web is the ability to make corrections right away to any published material. If you make a spelling mistake, bad link, etc. you can change things right away and the next person that comes to your site sees the corrected version.

However, this can be bad as well. You go to a blog or whatever, and the comments don't make sense to the post. I have changed posts before, but mainly they were spelling mistakes and bad links. What happens if I blog about something and then later think that I made a mistake. Should I change the post? Should I add to the post putting an "Update:", or should I just do another post with a trackback or something saying how I understand how I was wrong? How about deleting a post? It can be a very fine line.

Personally I like the "Update" option. I feel that every post I do is a snap shot into part of my head and shouldn't really be changed. If I said something or did something I have to live with those consequences. If I made a mistake, next time I will think twice about what I am going to post. Life isn't full of "do overs", so why should the web be? Even though the medium allows for instant change, I don't think that is good for ownership of what you do / did. No more than I can make defamatory comments in person and take them back, should I be allowed to on the net. It just annoys me, that's all. *deep breath* Okay, on to lunch.