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I was designing something for work a couple of months back. I got a little fancy and added a domain-specific language to the first draft, thinking that it could be useful for handling some special case requirements from the business that we haven’t considered for. I pulled it out in a later revision, thinking to myself “nah, you’re not going to need that anytime soon.”
Well, some changes came through from the business today, and now I wish I kept in that DSL. It hasn’t even been a week. 😛
P.S. I tend to add DLSs into every single project I build so don’t take this post as justification to add a scripting language to your next project just because “it could be useful”. 😉
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About Mocks In Unit Tests (Again)
How can one gain confidence that what they’re testing works if one is using mocks?
I’m grappling with this now as I go through making changes in one of the services I’m working on. So much of the logic requires rework, which means the tests will need to change. And yes, the tests use mocks, meaning that the changes are significant.
But do they have to be? We’re effectively mocking things that can easily run as part of the test. Things like a DynamoDB store — which can run within a Docker container — or even services from other packages. Sure they’re not part of the “unit”, so using them in a unit test won’t make it a “unit test” anymore. But I’d argue that using “real” implementation of dependent systems would produce more confidence in the changes I’m making. I’m able to change the logic without changing much of the test itself. Surely this is worth the “unit test” purity price.
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Getting to the point in the photo blogging challenge where I’m saying to myself: “have I posted this photo before?” One of the candidates I had for today, the answer is actually yes. Fortunately I do have an alternative.
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Day 17: intense
Didn’t time this photo well. There’s usually an intense game of soccer on this pitch most Saturdays. The Sunday crowds are a little more serene. #mbsept
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Spent some time today building a site for my Go utility packages. A feature I’ve decided to add is a Go template playground, where you can test out Go templates in the browser. Not something I’ll use everyday but I’ve occasionally wished for something like this before. Could be useful.
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Still waiting for the dream to be able to write code on an iPad. There are some good native apps out there for checking out Git repos and editing files with syntax highlighting, but I never use them because there’s nothing in the OS that integrates them all. You’re left with switching between them to do something in your workflow, which is disorientating as each one will take up the whole screen and throw away your context. I suppose there might be Shortcuts — I haven’t explored what it’s capable of — but what I really want is a shell.
The closest that worked for me is a Code Server web-app running in a chromeless browser. It works for me mainly because there is a shell. If the editor doesn’t support a feature, I can use a command to do what I need. I don’t have to switch between apps either: I can see what I’m doing and the files I’m doing it to. I can also build and run them code I’m writing. Fancy that!
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Day 16: oof!
I can’t understand people that stay up until midnight most nights. It’s only 9:00 and I’m already exhausted. #mbsept
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Day 15: red
Red mailboxes means the post will go faster. 😉 #mbsept
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Day 14: statue #mbsept
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Enjoying coffee and breakfast after a really early start and several weeks of hard work, with the satisfaction that the work is now done. Good feeling. 😌
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Day 12: panic
There have been a fair few stressors in my life recently, both at work and personally. And although they haven’t got to the level of panic, they have been a little overwhelming. It’s hard to believe it in the moment, but I guess they will eventually pass in time. #mbsept
(Source)
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Day 11: retrospect
This photo taken eight years to the day: part of a Roman wall in Exeter, UK. #mbsept
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Day 10: cycle
Bicycles at the station. Really need to get on my bike and buy one for myself. #mbsept
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I’m no fashion expert, but I’m guessing that if you were to stand on the corner holding this sign, you’re going to stop traffic. #dadjoke
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Oh, I’m having a day at work today. Everything’s broken, or not built right, and Slack has been pinging me non-stop with people experiencing problems. The original goals for today have been thrown out the window. I guess the only goal remaining is to get something better than it was yesterday. 😮💨
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Day 7: panorama
Might go wide for this one. View from the Paps, near Mansfield. #mbsept
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Day 6: well
Taken from the Churchill Island homestead. I’m trusting the sign here to be correct in it’s assertion that there used to be a well here. #mbsept
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Day 5: forest
I consider myself extremely lucky to live near a forest reserve. I walk through it several times a week. This forest, however, is absolutely nowhere near me. #mbsept
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Alternative Day Four Photo
I had an alternative idea for today’s photo challenge, which is “orange”. I was hoping to post a photo of something related to Melbourne’s busses.
You see, PTV has designated different colour for different modes of transport. Blue for metro trains, purple for regional trains, green for trams, and orange for busses. And from my experience using the service, they’re pretty consistent with adhering to this design language:
Anyway, they’re doing train works along my rail line over the past few weeks and this morning I noticed this sign (forgive the lighting, it was before dawn):
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Day 3: precious
A photo of the Hope Diamond, taken while touring the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, in Washington, DC. #mbsept
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I only just discovered yesterday that Feedbin has a read-it-later feature. The section only shows up in the sidebar after you add your first page, so I had no idea that this feature existed before I added one via the link popup-menu in the article viewer.
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Day 2: buildup
New shed being built nearby to house the spoil from a new road tunnel. It’s quite large. I guess they’re expecting quite a large build-up of dirt. #mbsept
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Feels good putting up another project on my omg.lol page.
Feels less good when I realised that I actually got the name of my own damn project wrong in the blog post I wrote yesterday. 🤦
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Mainboard Mayhem
Project update on Mainboard Mayhem, my Chip’s Challenge fan game. I didn’t get it finished in time for the release deadline, which was last weekend. I blame work for that. We’re going through a bit of a crunch at the moment, and there was a need to work on the weekend.
The good news is that there wasn’t much left to do, and after a few more evenings, I’m please to say that it’s done. The game is finish, and ready for release.
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GitLab is requiring me to manually click “automatically rebase” when I try to merge a MR. This option is only available after the CI/CD runs, which means I have to wait for the build, click “rebase”, and wait for another build before I can merge. Why doesn’t it just rebase automatically if it can?
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Missed the train this morning, but grabbed a photo of it travelling back to Newport this evening. 🚂
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A note to self for next year: the steam-train for the Wattle Festival comes through at around 9:00. Try to be around the railway line around then. 🚂
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I got a phising message last night. At least, I think it was a phishing message.
It was pretty convincing. It said that my address is wrong and needed to be fixed for a delivery. Clicking through — I’m actually expecting a delivery, which is why I clicked through — brought up a site that looked like a form from AusPost asking for my home address. It was styled like an AusPost site, but the domain ended in “.top” instead of “auspost.com.au”, and revealing the menu, which worked, I saw links pointing to the real AusPost site.
I’m taking all this, plus the fact that it was sent at 2 AM, as signal that it’s not genuine.
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Seeing a lot more EVs driving around recently, with the record being 12 sightings during one commute. Not all of them have witty number plates thought.
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While passing this sign on the way to work, I always wonder if they ever considered the name Catstruction.
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The ice bus returneth. 🚌🥶
