Helltime for January 18
Announcer: Now for quick hits and commentary on software development topics from around the web, the EIP web-ring brings you the stigmatized spawn of a refactory, MoffDub, and Helltime!
- Matt Givney on The Weekly Give has a very cool and concise example of what clean tests are all about in explaining how to unit-test Java code with Groovy. I think the example goes beyond clean code and into the realm of readable code. I’d like to be on that project.
- Helltime-repeatant Mark Needham raps about framework-generated versus hand-written test stubs. The few times I used a tool to auto-generate anything about my unit tests was with Jtest, and the resulting code would probably be at odds with clean tests or even readable tests. So I’m somewhat skeptical.
- An outfit called Windward Wrocks claims that the best programming interview question is “how many numbers between 1 and 100 contain 7 as a digit?”
The answer is 19, and I wasn’t thrown by the question. Nor am I thrown, like the post’s author seems to be, by why this might be a good initial question to ask a candidate. In order to answer correctly, you have to check your assumptions at the door and be as literal as the computer will be in calculating the answer. It doesn’t matter if the question itself has no meaning; that’s the point.
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