Learning programming with a visual mind

Hi folks. Today I want to write to you about learning something with a visual mind. There are a gazillion posts out there that tell you how to learn something with a visual mind. However, there are only a few actually describing how to learn something as complicated and logical as programming. How do you draw up a function? How do you draw up a cycle or a structure? Actually these are really easy....

September 9, 2012 · 3 min · hannibal

TDD and Game of Life

So today at 8-12PM I had a great session with two friends of mine. It was awesome. Like a mini code retreat. We set down in a musky bar, drank wine and beer and cider, and decided to practice some TDD with the well known problem of Conway’s Game of Life. This challenge is really interesting. I never done it before, ever. So it was a really good practice for me....

July 12, 2012 · 3 min · hannibal

Journey into an unknown system

Aka, what you can do if you are facing and unknown framework / system you have to work with for quite some time. Get intimate You are going to live with this system for a while. The best thing you can do is getting to know it better. You have to get it to know like you would approche a fine lady. You have to ask it questions look after it, how it feels how its day was....

June 28, 2012 · 2 min · hannibal

Solution to Wrap Kata

My solution to the String Wrap Kata. The goal is to have it wrap a text on a given column width. It is not the best solution but this is my first try. I did it with TDD so there were tests first, which I’m not going to copy in.. public class WrapKata { public String wrap(String input, int columnSize) { if (input.length() <= columnSize) return input; else { return wrapLines(input, columnSize); } } private String wrapLines(String input, int columnSize) { int breakPoint = getBreakPoint(input, columnSize); String head = createHead(input, breakPoint); String tail = createTail(input, breakPoint); return head += "\n" + wrap(tail, columnSize); } private String createTail(String input, int breakPoint) { return input....

June 26, 2012 · 1 min · hannibal

How to read a professional book for slow learners

Hi everybody. Today I want to talk to you about.. Well.. How to read a professional book for slow learners without too much waste of time. Let us start at the. well. the beginning. How do you normally read a book if you want to memorize it properly. You read it once and then re read the whole thing again until it gets in your head? Or do you have another strategy?...

June 18, 2012 · 3 min · hannibal

Don’t throw Exception

Hi. Today I want to talk about a common problem in many frameworks I encountered over the course of my carrier as a Java dev / automation engineer, whatnot. Throwing Exceptions. That is in your method you have something like this: public void insertMethodNameHere(String param) throws Exception {} This is bad. And I will tell you in short forms why. Hides exceptions This one should be obvious. When a method throws exception you can never be sure what kind of exceptions it handles....

June 13, 2012 · 4 min · hannibal

How to write a professional blog

Hi folks. I want to write a little bit about writing a professional blog. Early steps Let’s first talk about what you understand about professional blog. It’s either a semi professional one, that mixes life with professionalism, like chess, programming, testing, painting, drawing, engineering whatever your profession is. Or it can be a purely professional one without your life getting involved in it. Either way you have to decide at the beginning....

June 13, 2012 · 6 min · hannibal

Making your code understandable

Hi! I’ve seen this many times over and over again. Many people have wrote books about it already. Like Uncle Bob’s Clean Code. Like Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. What makes your code understandable to others. Is it Comments? No. It’s not comments. If your code could be read properly you wouldn’t need comments to explain what it does. Like Uncle Bob said. A good code doesn’t contain surprises....

June 13, 2012 · 2 min · hannibal

JMS Connection setup and Framework

Hello chumps. Today I want to write about jms connection testing with a small framework. I wrote a small thing using a factory object model. It’s a lead, a proof of concept. You can use this to go onward. First, let’s begin with the JMS connection it self. JMS Connection First rule of thumb is: “Don’t wait for a response when dealing with JMS queues.” How so? Because, a JMS queue is asynchronous so you wont get back anything....

March 4, 2012 · 5 min · hannibal

Configuration

When I see something like this: public class Config { public static final string DATABASELINK = "linkhere"; . . . } It sends a small, but chilling shiver down my spine. Just. don’t. There are a lot of possibilities to use configuration in Java. Java property files. Xml. Xml serialization. CSV file. Whatever suits you best, but this? DON’T!

February 27, 2012 · 1 min · hannibal