.net

ReSharper 5.0 auto update

Michel Grootjans — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:56:24 GMT

JetBrains is releasing nightly builds of ReSharper since Monday. R# looks very promising so I installed it.

But my favorite tool just got easier to update. Scott Cowan just published a tool to upgrade ReSharper 5.0 EAP automatically. Just like the previous version of the ReSharper Updater, it just works.

Thanks Scott.

One year ago...

Michel Grootjans — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:11:24 GMT

I was in awe before the master himself. A week of absolute code bliss with Jean-Paul Boodhoo. It has really been a life changing experience. I know it has changed me and the way I look at code. My focus has changed radically. I now find myself being a nag with team members. Make it work first, then make it as humanly readable as possible. Or maybe it shoul dbe "Make it as readable as humanly possible"...

I just read the five blog entries I wrote back then, and I'm amazed at the endurance that was required during the course. This was intended: "You only learn when you step outside of your comfort zone". I remember feeling tired on the second day, sleepy on the third, and a real zombie before the end of the week. More than 80 intense work hours squeezed into five exhilarating days.

I remember meeting a bunch of great like-minded people. I can't really say we keep in touch, but I regularly hear about some of them that are active members of the community. I read their blogs, and I hope they sometimes glance my way.

If you ever get a chance of following a nothin' but .net bootcamp, DO IT! No excuses, no lame explanations, just do it.

java vs .net: the community

Michel Grootjans — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:32:07 GMT

Since the beginning of July, I've been working on a java project. The language is very close to C#, although it has some minor irritating differences, like the lack good generic support, extension methods and closures. The big difference however is not in the language, the tools, the libraries or the utilities. One of the big differences I've seen is the community.

I've been on many projects that have worked exclusively with Microsoft tools, libraries and (god forbid) examples. When the subject is raised of alternatives like an open source ORM or IoC container the response is predictable. It's a raised eyebrow stating clearly that non-MS solutions couldn't possibly be better than libraries like the EF, EntLib and such. Oh, and were you suggesting using anything else than stored procedures for data access?

Your idea won't scale...
Your idea won't perform...
Your idea won't be secure...
Your idea will be buggy...
Have you thought about the maintenance ...

Let's look over the wall now, shall we? If you announce proudly that you're going to work on a java project with hibernate and spring, you get a blank look from your fellow devs. "Duh! Of course! What else?". This best of breed approach took some years to mature but is way ahead of the default .net crowd.

The alt.net movement, the NHibernate mafia and all those alternative folks who don't adhere to the true MSDN way of doing software development are actually very close to this. The difference is that we are there by choice and by experience. The java guys are there, almost by default. This means that the mainstream java dev knows and understands things like IoC, AoP, ORM. He might have forgotten (or doesn't know) why these practices were introduced, but he's been using them daily for some years. Just like we forgot about writing our own compilers and practicing bit shifts to divide by 2.

I think it is our responsibility to enlighten our colleagues, one at a time, for the rest of our professional lives. To try and bridge that gap between alt.net and the mainstream .net development. And ultimately, as a community, help Microsoft on the course it is taking to embrace open source.

Quoting a fellow alt.net colleague I value greatly: How on earth did it ever get this far in our industry for this mindset to be considered alternative?

java vs .net: the language

Michel Grootjans — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:43:53 GMT

I'd like to compare the java language to .net as I'm experiencing it. First of all, I'd like to point out that the differences are less than the similarities. Purely seen from a syntax point there really are no differences. Except of course if you're used to .net 3.5. This is irritating at first, but after a while you're just resigned to it. Take the simple properties we're so used to in .net

Compare these two identical pieces of code:
java:

private int counter;

public int getCounter(){
return counter;
}

public void setCounter(int value){
counter = value;
}

.net:

public Counter{get; set;}

I know we didn't have them before .net 3.5, and I realize the dangers of overexposing members, but I love the conciseness of automatic properties. For 7 properties I have 7 lines of code in .net and 70 lines of code in java.

Other things you don't get in java are anonymous methods, so that's no lambdas or LINQ either. No extension methods, so bye bye to simple readability like 1.February(2005). Access modifiers are slightly different but that's just something you accept and move in. All in all it's like having to go back to .net 2.0, which a lot of us have to do from time to time.

However, the thing that the .net platform really nailed, compared to java, is generics. I'm going to illustrate this with an example.
.net:

public T Get<T>(int id)
{
return session.Get<T>(id);
}

This is just not possible in java. For example, you cannot ask the type of T at runtime like this typeof(T)). Generics are just a little syntactical sugar at design time and as a compiler check.
In java, your code will look like this:

<T> public T get(Class<T> clazz, int id){
return (T) session.get(clazz, id);
}

Which makes every caller look like this:

repository.get(Person.class, id);

The cast to T might even fail at runtime if the type returned by session is not of T.

Primitive types are also something to get used to. In .net, you can easily do 1.ToString(). No such luck in java. new Integer(1).toString() is the way to go, since 1 is not an object. To me, java seems a more technical language where it is harder to express intent without giving in too much into technical implementation.

I might sound a little whiny in this post, but all things taken into account, I enjoy this journey into a new, albeit a similar language. I can't wait to get an offer to try Ruby on Rails ;-)

Polyglot programming

Michel Grootjans — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:11:59 GMT

For many developers, the one-language notion is a sign of lack of professionalism. This is best exemplified by the Pragmatic Programmers' advice to learn a new language every year. The point here is that programming languages do affect the way you think about programming, and learning new languages can do a lot to help you think about solving problems in different ways.

From Martin Fowler’s at http://martinfowler.com/bliki/OneLanguage.html

I got the opportunity to participate in a java project since July. I’m going to share the pleasure and pain this brings to a .net developer. There are interesting differences in language, conventions, tools, application servers, IDE, … Since all I’m doing in the next weeks and maybe months will be java, you’ll hear that from me.

Too bad Martin fowler ended his paragraph with:

It's important to learn languages that are quite different in order to get the benefit of this. Java and C# are too similar to count.

It’s all about readability

Michel Grootjans — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:17:15 GMT

This is a topic that is near and dear to me. Readability is about being able to understand the code. Maybe the word should be “Understandability”, but that word suffers of the exact same thing it describes ;-)

Anyway, compare these two lines, and tell me what line you understand fastest:

   1:  startDate = new DateTime(2008, 5, 15);

   2:  startDate = 15.May(2008);

This might not seem much, but to me line 2 clearly states the intent of the code, whereas line 1 makes me think. I don’t want to think about how the code is implemented, I want the code to explain what it does, even why it does it.

Another one of these causes of confusion is the lambda extension from RhinoMocks x.Stub(x => x.DoStuff())… Every time I introduce mocking to a new team, I have a lot of explaining to do around the ‘Stub’ Extension. I recently introduced a change to the team for this one particular call. Compare these two:

   1:  userMapper.Stub(m => m.Map(user)).Return(viewUserDto);

   2:  When(userMapper).IsToldTo(m => m.Map(user)).Return(viewUserDto);

Again, this exercise might seem unnecessary, as experienced developers will instantly understand this. In my experience however, all developers tend to understand this kind of code without much effort.

Just my €0.02

An alternative way to do a retrospective

Michel Grootjans — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:55:32 GMT

We did the retrospective on our first sprint today. Usually, our retrospectives are divided into three parts:

what went well
what went ... less well
what can we improve

This was usually rendered on the wall like this:

Good	To improve	Action points
...	...	...
...	...	...

Today we tried something new. The three columns were now called:

Keep doing	Stop doing	Start doing
...	...	...
...	...	...

You might say this is just a question of labels, but to me it felt completely different.

My geeky Christmas present

Michel Grootjans — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 10:10:55 GMT

My wife gave me a green wristband for Christmas. It arrived by mail a few days ago. Now I have a physical reminder of the holy grail I'm pursuing.

My first FitNesse test

Michel Grootjans — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:39:16 GMT

After my previous post, I've got a FitNesse server running and configured. It's now time to write some tests. Of course, since this is a demo, this will be a simple, self-explanatory test. I'll implement a simple calculator, capable of adding two integers.

Let's write that in FitNesse. First, I'll create a test suite called "DemoSuite". So I go to http://localhost:8888/DemoSuite. Since that page doesn't exist yet, FitNesse proposes a new page. I just accept it.

Then I go to a subpage, that I call http://localhost:8888/DemoSuite.CalculatorTest. Again, FitNesse doesn't recognize this page and proposes a new one. I now replace the content with this:

!1 Let's run a simple calculator
!|CalculatorRunner|
|Arg1|Arg2|Sum?|
|0|0|0|

This gets rendered like this:

Notice what is expressed here: The test is a CalculatorRunner, that's what the top of the column says. Then I provide two arguments: Arg1=0 and Arg2=0. The Sum of both arguments should be 0. How do I tell FitNesse that the Sum should be checked? Simple: I've appended a "?" after Sum. That's enough to tell FitNesse that this is an assertion.

This test won't run of course. We now need to create a test fixture to accept the test. These are the steps to follow:

create a new project
add a reference to "fit.dll", located in the dotnet2 directory in the fit directory

There we create a new class that has to match exactly the name of our test. That will be "CalculatorRunner"

using fit;

namespace MyBlogPosts.FitNesse
{
    public class CalculatorRunner : ColumnFixture
    {
        public int Arg1 { get; set; }
        public int Arg2 { get; set; }

        public int Sum()
        {
            return Arg1 + Arg2;
        }
    }
}

Get it? Each column in the FitNesse test above matches a property or a method in my testclass.

Ok, if I now run the test, it will still fail! Why? Because it can't find the assembly it's in. Lets fix that, shall we. Hit "edit" on the testpage (or navigate to http://localhost:8888/DemoSuite.CalculatorTest?edit)

Add the following on top of the page:

!path C:\...\bin\Debug\*.dll

This will tell FitNesse to scan that directory for assemblies too. It's kinda like having a reference in a project.

On last thing before you hit "Save" (you hit it already, didn't you?). Add the following too:

!|import|
|MyBlogPosts.FitNesse|

This is the namespace to import during this test. Kind of a "using" declaration in C#. Now run the test. Did it work? For me, this is the result:

Looks OK to me. Lets expand the tests a little, shall we?

I'm editing the page like this:

!|CalculatorRunner|
|Arg1|Arg2|Sum?|
|0|0|0|
|1|1|3|
|-1|1|0|
|-100|1|-99|

Lets run it again:

Oops, looks like I missed one... but hey. That's exactly what tests are for, no?

By the way, this is what a ColumnFixture in FitNesse is. Three more testtypes coming up, plus a little refactoring.

How to set up a FitNesse server

Michel Grootjans — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:30:41 GMT

What is FitNesse?

Fitnesse is a tool that, if used wisely (big assumption), can turn requirements into functional tests.

Examples can elaborate requirements. Examples can become tests. Tests can verify requirements.

I'm not going to elaborate on the pro's and contra's of FitNesse. Others have done that before me.

Installing the server

Setting up FitNesse is a piece of cake. You just need to know the steps.

First of all, go download fitnesse. Extract the downloaded content to a directory of your choosing. We'll call this the "fit directory" from now on.

Go and download the .net 2.0 testrunner. Extract this content to a new subdirectory called "dotnet2" under the fit directory. The fit directory should now look like the image to the right.

Preparing the server

Since all of us are running IIS on port 80, FitNesse wont run on it. You will have to edit run.bat, and add the port number to it.

We run on port 8888. To do this, you need to edit "run.bat" like this

java -cp fitnesse.jar fitnesse.FitNesse %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 –p 8888

When you run 'run.bat', you have your server up and running. Just go to http://localhost:8888 and go "Ooooh...".

Next step is editing the base markup variables. Go to http://localhost:8888/?edit and add the following lines to the page.

!path dotnet2\*.dll

!define COMMAND_PATTERN {%m %p}
!define TEST_RUNNER {dotnet2\FitServer.exe}
!define PATH_SEPARATOR {;}

This declares some specifics for running .net tests, as well as pointing to the .net 2.0 test runner we downloaded separately.

That's it for the moment. Next will be the tests.

External links:

FitNesse	http://fitnesse.org/FitNesse.DownLoad
.net 2.0 runner	http://sourceforge.net/projects/fitnessedotnet/
Gojko's web site	http://gojko.net/ http://gojko.net/tag/fitnesse/