I've gone all trendy and geek-chic.... yes I've started a blog: radio.weblogs.com/0111784/
It's just been revamped with a cool new style, courtesy of the Open Source Web Design guys (www.oswd.org/index.php)
Java developer at Yell ltd. (www.yell.com)
Update: YATW - YetAnotherThoughtWorker?, due to start at ThoughtWorks in mid January 2003.
I've written a handy JUnit suite generation utility in Java. It takes a sourcepath and a package name and an optional suite filename (defaults to 'AllTests.java') and generates a test suite in that package that includes all the test classes in the package and its subpackages. Would it be of use to anyone for me to upload it somewhere? Yes please, very useful - GuyHenryAtkinson?.
Went to the excellent XpDay on 15/12/01 - Well done to all the organisers - not only did it allow me to finally put faces to all the names, but going out drinking afterwards with KentBeck and MartinFowler (and of course members of the XtC) was also pretty cool!
Shiny toys I am playing with at the moment:
Ruby. Its like cross between Smalltalk and Python, only more so.
Python. For when Perl is just too damn @$_=>%=~//s.
Smalltalk (as part of an OU Postgrad diploma / MSc course).
XP (specifically TFD - I'm currently attempting to extract the functionality from some wonderfully obfuscated code into a cleaner, more OO structure using TFD). Best thing about TFD? It forces you to make your objects constructable without having to (eg) drag in half the classes from your application server.
OliBye also agrees that TFD is a great way to unpick old code. I start with functional tests which make sure I understand what I think is supposed to happen.
Failing fast when refactoring old untested code. Making your objects check their state when their public methods are called and throw IllegalStateException? if something is amiss can help to confine any regression problems to the immediate blast zone. Once the test coverage (and confidence factor) goes up, the internal healthchecks can be removed.
Linux (briefly), before finding an even more obscure OS to install on my system, namely...
FreeBSD. A very cool and exceedingly robust Unix-descended OS for PC hardware. Has just obtained an official Sun JDK/JRE license. (www.freebsd.org).
DarrenHobbs