Simply Jonathan

Archive for October 2015

Firefox `screenshot` command 

This is so useful. I had no idea Firefox even had an additional command line, but I can see immediate use of this, and --fullpage is near-impossible to do without this tool.

Uncle Bob on the VW scandal 

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Some programmers did, in fact, do this.

If we had a real profession, those programmers would be brought before that profession, investigated, and if found guilty, drummed out of the profession in disgrace.

TDD and complexity 

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Imagine each side of the balance sheet contained only one number. Would the process have value? No. Imagine that each side had a thousand numbers but they were entered in exactly the same order, and were added on exactly the same row as their counterpart on the other side. Would you ever need to total the numbers? No. You wouldn’t even need two sheets. You would spot any problems as you entered the details.

Now imagine the real world example that there are thousands of numbers being added to each side of the balance sheet in completely random orders at different times. Varying numbers of out-going items for each incoming item. Now do you want the practice? Of course you do.

What’s the difference? It’s the scope of the work required to consolidate everything.

I can’t claim to be a stringent practitioner of TDD, but having a good test suite improves confidence in the software. The balance to strike, and I’m still not sure I do that consistently, is making tests that are neither too close to the actual code nor so far removed that they test the whole system.

Derfor skal vi beholde retsforbeholdet 

(This post is in Danish)

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Kommunistisk Parti redegør her for hvorfor vi bør stemme nej ved den kommende folkeafstemning.

Hvis man ikke er fan af et føderalt EU er der dybest set ingen grund til at stemme ja.

This is Simply Jonathan, a blog written by Jonathan Holst. It's mostly about technical topics (and mainly the Web at that), but an occasional post on clothing, sports, and general personal life topics can be found.

Jonathan Holst is a programmer, language enthusiast, sports fan, and appreciator of good design, living in Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe. He is also someone pretentious enough to call himself the 'author' of a blog. And talk about himself in the third person.