Monthly Archives: July 2017

PostHoc: Testing Apps that Send Email

Posted on July 24, 2017 by keith swenson

I have developed a utility program that is extremely useful for testing and demonstrating applications that send email.  It is called Post Hoc.   As far as your application is concerned, it is an SMTP server, but it comes with a … Continue reading →

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Grounding Design for the Real World

Posted on July 17, 2017 by keith swenson

One common rabbit hole that programmers often fall into is creating designs for abstract capabilities that then prove to be useless in real life. To avoid this, we must focus on concrete real-world examples when designing capabilities.

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Don't Write Insulting Error Messages

Posted on July 14, 2017 by keith swenson

Error messages are incredibly important in communicating to the user when something happened that the program was not designed to handle.  Programmers usually write these messages, and there are common pitfalls to avoid.

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Extreme Precision Programming

Posted on July 12, 2017 by keith swenson

What is “Extreme Precision Programming”?  It is a style of programming that aims to perform the intended function, while being very noisy about anything that deviates from the intended mode of behavior.  It is nothing like a complete methodology, but … Continue reading →

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It's OK to Ship Tests with Product

Posted on July 10, 2017 by keith swenson

A product is a product, and testing is testing, and they should be kept separate, right?  The thinking goes that consumers would never want to test the product.  Of course they don’t, but they are not the only people in … Continue reading →

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When are "best practices" less than best?

Posted on July 3, 2017 by keith swenson

A “best practice” is a heuristic which is used to guide early stages of a project, in order to set some patterns.  When should you use them?  More important: when are you justified in ignoring a best practice?

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