Month: August 2009

Kool-Aid, drinking the

At work, I’ve finally had a chance to apply some of the practices I’ve been reading about (and advocating) for months. Foremost among them are the related concepts of test-driven development, (proper) unit testing, dependency injection and the principle of least knowledge (aka the Law of Demeter).

And what do you know: they actually work!

I’ve also wound up doing quite a bit of refactoring—mostly, as someone (maybe Michael Feathers?) put it, of “new legacy” code, stuff that’s been written in the last few months (not by me) which is full of global state and complex un-mockable setup. Most of that has been scattershot/mercenary work to make life easier for myself, rather than a concerted effort to rebuild the foundations without tearing down the walls, but I think I’ve made some incremental improvements that will help in the long run.

Now I just have to get the rest of the source control/build monkeys off my back. A few months ago I’d almost divested myself of one, through no small or short-lived effort, but just when I thought I was out….

Coin

Obverse:

It has been Hollywood gospel for decades that advertising and marketing can help a film to open strongly, but moviegoers talking with each other are crucial to its continuing success. [… Younger moviegoers] resist a choice that is not in step with their peer group. Having joined the crowd at Transformers, they’re making their plans to see G. I. Joe. Some may have heard about The Hurt Locker, but simply lack the nerve to suggest a movie choice that involves a departure from groupthink.

If I mention the cliché “the dumbing-down of America,” it’s only because there’s no way around it. And this dumbing-down seems more pronounced among younger Americans. It has nothing to do with higher educational or income levels. It proceeds from a lack of curiosity[…] This trend coincides with the growing effectiveness of advertising and marketing campaigns to impose box office success on heavily-promoted [CGI] blockbusters, which are themselves often promotions for video games. No checks and balances prevail. The mass media is the bitch of marketing.

Reverse:

Craig Ferguson, July 21, 2009