ISerializable - Roy Osherove's Blog

The book of never ending production is now actually near the end.

the projected print date of “Art Of Unit Testing” is now April 30 and I’m happy to see the Amazon page for the book already has one review of the early access version (though he totally destroys my spelling and book formatting abilities, he likes the content, so I’m happy)

I fully agree that software is a very creative profession. Sometimes the creativity lies in creating things, sometimes it’s about taking things apart to understand them, or restructure them, and sometimes it’s just about being creative with your task and time managment.

I should totally give these cards a try.

Looks like the Code Formatter plugin for Live Writer has been updated. Gonna give it a try.

the second purim holiday with my little family was awesome. Just wanted you to know that.

(yes, that’s a real snake)

twitter totally killed my blogging drive. It's like a premature-bloggization enducer

trying to get back on the horse..

It’s time to re-examine where things stand in our little niche.

This should be interesting, if enough people answer – so please answer (you need flash).

We’ve been debating this one internally for two weeks now. So I voted that we take this out to the community. Hopefully, you won’t make me look like an Idiot to my boss for suggesting it..

We need your help finding a new slogan for Typemock. You could win stuff, too. (I won’t tell you which of the four proposed is mine… the idea is to come up with your own slogans)

A free license of NHibernate goes to the first one who can give me a good *hosted* solution for password-protected RSS feeds and blogs.

I’ve been looking everywhere, but was not able to get an PASS protected RSS feed from either WordPress or Blogger.com

what am I missing?

What I need is to setup a blog that can only be read (online or via RSS) by using a predefined user\password.

People seem to have a problem with me “changing lanes”. But that’s the way I learn things.

If I totally disagree with something, I accept the fact that I may be doing so because of fear and misunderstanding. The best way to get rid of FUD is to give something a shot, and that’s what I do.

• I had a problem with Team System – I thought it was too much, but I didn’t have all the facts.What was I going to do about it?

So I started learning it and doing consulting on it. My goal was to become an authority on it so that I can say I’ve been to both sides and now I can decide better based on real knowledge. Today I use svn because it makes more sense for my current team – not because I don’t like TFS (I do, it has lots of good stuff, just like it has bad stuff)

• I had a problem with Typemock – I thought it was a lousy product, that kills design for testability.. What was I going to do about it?

So luckily the company resides in the same country where I work, so I got up the nerves and actually started working on the damn product. Now, having been in both sides I can safely decide and answer all questions from both sides, in a more objective manner. Do I always use it? no. I use it when it makes sense. I also get to make it better in terms of API, usability and vision, so that it fits more into how I think it should be. That’s what I’m doing about it.

What’s next though?

• I have a problem with BDD and spec-related frameworks. What am I going to do about it? (can you guess?)
• I have a problem with people who think I’m a sellout – can I do something about that? (accept the fact I can’t control what other people think, and just do what I feel is the right thing – lead by example)
• I have a problem with DDD (not getting it). what do I intend to do about it? (can you guess?)
• I still don’t get NHibernate well enough. I intend to do something about that.

My point is:

Sometimes real courage means not standing in the sidelines and saying something is bad. Sometimes it means trying something even if you may look like a fool or a sellout, because that’s the only way to learn that something and come out with more knowledge. Sometimes that means you don’t feel as comfortable as you should.

TO all the detractors: a little challenge. since you’re so frigging confident in what you do, take a chance and

• Develop a full project with VB.NET
• Use Typemock on a real project
• Use TFS on a real project
• Do TDD on a real project

at worst you’ll have actual things to say why you don’t like them, and you will have learned something.

otherwise, get the hell of my lawn.

People will pay you to learn – no matter what you do in your developer life, people will pay you to constantly learn.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a developer, team lead, manager, consultant, speaker, IT Guy or anything – whatever you choose to do in your career will be a learning experience.

The courses I teach on TDD are never the same between instances. Each one if a bettering of the one before it, because things change between them: reality changes, my understanding changes, preconceptions are broken, and new ones are formed. So yeah, people will pay for my mistakes, as they pay for any mistakes we all do during our career.

Being afraid of being wrong is not a reason to stop doing something – doing is a way to learn. Can you say that you wasted money on learning VB6 courses a 8 years ago? does it matter? That’s how things just are.

If someone teaches a course on TDD, which then turns to a course on BDD – does that mean that you wasted your money on those earlier TDD courses, that you were actually paying for that someone’s mistakes in perception? what about the opposite?

IF I as a consultant were teaching someone to do X and a year later I realize it should have been Y all along – does that mean I’m a scam artist? or that I took advantage of someone? If so – every developer and consultant on the face of the earth should stop working right now – because we live in a reality that keeps changing as we learn from it.

It’s all in the doing. that is where the learning lies. and growth comes from actually being wrong, figuring it out and bettering it.

There are no courses that are always relevant. at the minimum they need small alterations. not to mention changing in full.