DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by ImplicitGeek

DDD7 Session Video - Microsoft Pex - The future on unit testing?

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:29:53 GMT

Video of presentation from DDD7 in Reading, UK about Pex and the future of unit testing. Abstract: Is unit testing about to have a major change? Pex is a project from Microsoft Research which automatically generates a traditional unit testing suite with high code coverage from hand-written parameterised unit tests. In this session, Ben explores the Pex framework, explaining the approach the framework takes and how it computes the test inputs based on your programs execution. Ben demonstrates how to use the framework and how it could potentially change the way we write unit tests.

Very exciting news! Red Gate's .Net Reflector

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:15:25 GMT

Red Gate announced today that, under a new agreement, it will be responsible for the future development of .NET Reflector, the popular tool authored by Lutz Roeder.

Announcing IronEditor - An Editor for IronRuby, IronPython and other D

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:17:26 GMT

IronEditor is a simple application designed to make it easier to pick up and start coding against the DLR based languages. By taking advantage of the DLR's Hosting API, the application can execute code for any language built on top of the DLR platform.

Arrange Act Assert and BDD specifications

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:46:11 GMT

With Rhino Mocks 3.5 just around the corner, I've started using it to create much more readable tests. One of the things that always bothered me with Expect.Call, constraints and the like was that it mixed in the Arrange with Assert. For those that haven't heard of AAA, it's a pattern for authoring unit tests: * Arrange - set up the unit under test * Act - exercise the unit under test, capturing any resulting state * Assert - verify the behavior through assertions As I moved towards BDD context/specification style tests, working with Rhino Mocks didn't fit the picture very well. But with the new AAA syntax of Rhino Mocks 3.5, I can very cleanly separate out the behavior I want to observe from the mechanics of setting up the test.

Community call to action - Where are all the testers?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:59:23 GMT

Ben asks the question - where are all the testers? I have to admit, I don't hear much from the testing community.

Microsoft Pex - 0.5 Released

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:01:11 GMT

Great post into the new Microsoft Pex Unit Testing framework. Demostrates how what gets executed, the results and some on the initial cool features.

Is the ADO.NET Team Abandoning LINQ to SQL?

Fri, 23 May 2008 23:46:07 GMT

Roger Jennings, eagle-eyed reporter of all things LINQ/ADO.NET/EF, describes why LINQ to SQL appears to be approaching legacy product status, with promised features unlikely to ever ship.

Using SQL Data Generator with your Unit Tests

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:30:54 GMT

This demonstrates how to use Red Gate's SQL Data Generator as part of your automated test suite, this allows you to generate data before the test is executed. Article says the approach works with all of the unit testing frameworks.

Red Gate SQL Data Generator 1.0 - Generating data for Northwind

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:48:48 GMT

Red Gate SQL Data Generator 1.0 has been released. Looks to be an interesting product for creating test data for SQL Server databases. Post demostrates how to generate data using it for Northwind.

Improving .Net Performance With Ngen: The Native Image Generator

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:01:02 GMT

An overview Microsoft's complimentary .NET tool called NGen (Native Image Generator) and how it's used in 1.1 and 2.0

C# DateTime.MinValue is not the same as SqlDateTime.MinValue

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:01:02 GMT

Working with non-nullable types in C# can be a bit of a pain. For instance when I have a date as a string and need to parse it into a DateTime what should the value be if the parse fails? I can't use null because DateTime is not a nullable type.

Getting started with IronPython

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:35:14 GMT

An interesting look at how to get started with IronPython and how all the different parts fit together. Great if you want to dig deeper into the language or the DLR.

When TDD goes bad

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:46:03 GMT

Last week, at the London .NET User Group meeting, Ian Cooper talked about Test-driven development, focusing on both good and bad practices. I'm a big fan of learning from anti-patterns and mistakes of other people, so the second part of his session was very interesting to me. Here is a short list of things that Ian identified as symptoms that TDD has gone bad in a project, along with my comments...