July 2009 - Posts
If you have used more than one unit test framework (i.e. xUnit.NET, NUnit, MSTest/VSTS, etc.), chances are that you’ll miss features from one when using another.
In particular, MSTest/VSTS is lagging behind the crowd as it’s stuck in an NUnit circa 2002 (2.0) API for assertions and test attributes. This is what happens when you have a product that has to honor backwards compatibility even at the expense of usability and/or evolution of coding styles and API design.
Compare that with xUnit.NET, which had the luxury of starting from scratch just over a year ago, with all the accumulated learnings from NUnit and years of TDD work. The one assertion I missed the most from xUnit.NET was Throws:
Assert.Throws<ArgumentNullException>(() => service.Do(null));
Very explicit, highly precise check for an exception being thrown. MSTest, on the other hand, is still stuck in the (now even called a ...
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Yes, what has been reported already is indeed very true.
I bought 1984 a while back (from another publisher, though). Hadn’t started it yet, but all of a sudden, it was gone yesterday. Got a refund email from Amazon for it, a refund I never asked (and I never asked to the return the item either).
Just two hours ago, though, I got an explanation from Amazon:
We have recently refunded your purchase of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) by George Orwell. This book was added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and refunded previous customers. We are working with the authorized rights holder to make this title available in our store very soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Amazon has made a couple not-too-smart choices lately. This one, and not allowing you to re-download your purchased DRM-free MP3 music.
I sincerely hope they fix both.
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So Microsoft just shipped Silverlight 3.0. Outstanding achievement in its own right for a company that takes multi-year cycles for pretty much every product, if you ask me.
Silverlight is indeed a very cool technology. With the latest additions and especially the HD media capabilities, it’s already ahead of the crowd that it started “emulating”. I want to see Silverlight further expanded in the following two scenarios:
- Replacement for Media Center XML language: who wants to learn yet another UI markup language? Deprecate it, move to Silverlight-only.
- Embedded chipset with built-in support for an “Silverlight Embedded” profile
Replacement for Media Center
Currently, Media Center uses its own markup language and lacks tooling support that Silverlight/WPF enjoy (Blend/VisualStudio). It’s time to let it die and embrace Silverlight markup, even if that requires creating a “Silverlight Media Center” profile with a subset that must be supported by extenders....
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