In a word, NAMING! If your going to take just one thing from BDD and apply it to your work I recommend you start with the way BDD practitioners name their tests. Typically you see test names like:
[Test]
public void make_customers_preferred_when_their_purchases_exceed_a_threshold()
{
//…….test implementation
}
Even if your not using BDD I strongly suggest using the sentence like naming convention as it makes understanding what’s going on in a test library that much quicker and simpler. And, whilst your at it, why not check out BDD and give a framework like NBehave a try.
None of us needs to be told how difficult the times are that we are living in today and even if you haven’t been personally effected by the global financial crisis in a measurable way, you have most likely seen a colleague or perhaps heard of an acquaintance who has been. I have written in the past about the different decisions developers make about how “invested” they are in their careers and in the harsh reality of rising unemployment, it is becoming a deciding factor in competing for ever dwindling jobs.
Let’s back track just a little and consider the difference in nature between our profession (Software Development) and some others. The key for me in this respect is the sheer depth and volume of information and teaching available in our field, it’s really quite staggering and furthermore it’s a moving target that grows at an enormous pace: we will come back to that a bit later. Secondly, in the past, the size of the market place supporting our profession and the health of the surrounding economy and the fact that we have been experiencing a sellers employment market until now, made it easier to support being less ‘invested’ for some in our community. Enormous demand always leaves low hanging fruit which leaves the ‘less invested’ with more opportunities to continue a pattern of complacent behaviour. Ouch, that statement might prove to be a bit controversial but I believe it has merit.
Basically, what I suppose I am trying to say here is this; there has always been a breed of developer who is prepared to learn up to a point and then sit back on their laurels and take a 9-5 approach to their job. I am not suggesting that everyone spend their every waking moment in a quest for continually learning but I prefer working with developers that take a interest in bettering themselves and don’t settle for a status quo in their knowledge base.
I know I will be investing in myself more in 2009 than perhaps in any year to date and that includes giving up my personal time to learn things new and old. I plan on diving deeper with IronRuby, DSL’s, XAML based user interfaces and reacquainting myself with the SOLID principles. What are you are plans?
