Performance Performance consists of responsiveness (POV of a client), throughput (POV of system), and resource utilization (POV of system). This will vary by load, so when testing performance, load should be constant. Scalability Scalability is related to an application's ability to increase load while holding performance constant by adding resources. This will vary when performance changes, so…
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(If you're interested, here's the website. It accompanies a documentary I created for my Girl Scout Gold Award. I finished the project last year but only recently found the time to put a website together) HTML in VS Code VS Code automatically provides Intellisense, etc. for HTML code. It does not have automatic preview capability, but plenty of extensions are available to provide that. I ended up…
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Literal Pumpkin Seeds This weekend, my little brothers and I carved Jack o' Lanterns. That is to say, I carved Jack o' Lanterns. Jack O' Lanterns Pumpkin carving is great, and it's the one time of the year that I feel good at art, but one of my favorite parts of the process is the pumpkin seeds you get to eat afterwards. Every year, I roast the seeds, and every year I have to ask my mom or grandma…
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I recently completed Creating N-Tier Applications in C#, Part 2 by Steve Smith. Here are my notes from Creating N-Tier Applications in C#, Part 1. Here are my notes from Part 2: Testing Unit tests in an n-tier application should generally only care about one of your tiers (which should be in its own project file); integration tests will likely care about several tiers, and possibly also have some…
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The String Calculator Kata is a great kata for practicing test-driven development. In this kata, you spend 30 minutes trying to complete as many of the 9 sections as possible, but the idea is that you never read ahead - you can only read the step you're on. You can view the instructions here. This attempt, I got through 6 sections, which is better than my previous few results of 5 sections. I'm…
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Feathers gives a "working definition" of legacy code as "code without tests." 4 Reasons to Change Software: Add a feature Fix a bug Improve design (refactoring) Optimize resource use Unit testing is a fantastic way to document what code should do and catch unintentional changes when making changes to your software. Feathers calls tests intended to catch changes a "software vice," because they…
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I love that GitHub has the capability for me to edit and pull request code (particularly text-based files, like Markdown) in the web. It's really convenient, especially when you're just looking to fix a typo or add a quick sentence. That way you don't have to clone the whole repository to your computer, which can be a real pain, especially if you're literally just fixing a typo. So I was a little…
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Pluralsight's Design Patterns Library course has a module on the Specification Pattern from Steve Smith. The Specification Pattern is often used in the specification of queries, rules (in the Rules Pattern), and requirements. The Specification Pattern provides an application with separation of concerns, decoupled classes, and easier testing. A specification typically has a method which returns…
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Having recently learned about the Rules Pattern, I found the Greed Kata really useful for solidifying that pattern in my mind. The pattern made sense while I was learning about it, but now I really get it. You can find the instructions for this kata here. You'll find that you can complete this kata in a variety of ways. However, it definitely lends itself to test-driven-development (TDD), as well…
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Pluralsight's Design Patterns Library course has a module on the Rules Pattern from Steve Smith. The Rules Pattern is applicable in a class or method with complex business logic whose complexity is likely to continue to increase. A good example is complex discount or gamification logic. The Rules Pattern should be considered in systems with lots of conditional complexity, and where the selection…
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