Two Ways of Solo Programming

Note To Self Pattern No Comments

Occasionally, especially in times between (paid) projects, I program solo. This morning, I realised that I operate in two ‘modes’ which slightly differ in the way I leave the project I’m working on in the evenings.

One way of working is when I program along while working through a book. Currently, I’m reading ‘Agile Web Development with Rails 7‘ (by Sam Ruby & Dave Thomas). I very much leave the ‘Depot’ app (the example application used in the book) with a completed section and passing tests. The Part of the next section is a fresh starting point in the following morning.

The other way is when I’m progressing in a project, i.e. a library or tool, I work on. In these cases, I prefer to leave a (read: one) failing test in the evening, so it’s easy to remember what I was planning to do in the morning: To fix/implement the code to make the tests pass. Note though, that I do not commit & push this failing tests to version control.

This is neither a new nor my idea. Nick Holden wrote about in 2018 already, in his blog post ‘Try ending today with a failing test for a great start tomorrow‘.

Have you noticed differences in developing software (whether it’s the coding, testing, UX, or any other aspect of it), between times of working alone versus working in a team? What are they? I would be seriously interested in hearing about this.

An Odd Behaviour When Creating A Rails App

Note To Self Rails Ruby 2 Comments

I’m currently looking into Rails 7 and found an odd behaviour when creating a new Rails app. Before creating a Rails app a few other things need to be in place, most notably Ruby, and _a_ database. My set up is this:

Ruby
3.1.0
Rails
7.0.2
rbenv
1.2.0
SQLite3
3.37.0
PostgreSQL
14.2

The simplest way to create a new Rails app is this:

rails new app_name

You can also specify various options, including, for example --css=tailwind, to use Tailwind for CSS. Since that’s what is used in a book I’m reading (‘Agile Web Development with Rails 7’ by Sam Ruby & Dave Thomas), I ran this:

rails new app_name --css=tailwind

Now I got an exception logged in the output, while also the exit code of the command was 0. Interesting. Here’s the command and the output (lots of output omitted for brevity):

rails new a_new_app --css=tailwind
      create
  …
      create  Gemfile
         run  git init from "."
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/stephan/dev/tmp/a_new_app/.git/
      create  app
…
      create  config/master.key
      append  .gitignore
      create  config/boot.rb
…
      remove  config/initializers/new_framework_defaults_7_0.rb
         run  bundle install
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/...........
Resolving dependencies....
Using rake 13.0.6
Using minitest 5.15.0

…
Using rails 7.0.2
Bundle complete! 16 Gemfile dependencies, 75 gems now installed.
Use `bundle info [gemname]` to see where a bundled gem is installed.
         run  bundle binstubs bundler
       rails  importmap:install
…
Add Tailwindcss include tags and container element in application layout
      insert  app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
      insert  app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
      insert  app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
…
Add default Procfile.dev
      create  Procfile.dev
Ensure foreman is installed
         run  gem install foreman from "."
Successfully installed foreman-0.87.2
/Users/stephan/.rbenv/versions/3.1.0/lib/ruby/gems/3.1.0/gems/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:88:in `require': cannot load such file -- yard (LoadError)
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:88:in `load_yard'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:163:in `setup'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:152:in `generate'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:63:in `block in generation_hook'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:52:in `each'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/yard-0.9.27/lib/yard/rubygems/hook.rb:52:in `generation_hook'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/request_set.rb:311:in `block in install_hooks'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/request_set.rb:310:in `each'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/request_set.rb:310:in `install_hooks'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/request_set.rb:209:in `install'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/commands/install_command.rb:210:in `install_gem'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/commands/install_command.rb:226:in `block in install_gems'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/commands/install_command.rb:219:in `each'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/commands/install_command.rb:219:in `install_gems'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/commands/install_command.rb:167:in `execute'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/command.rb:323:in `invoke_with_build_args'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/command_manager.rb:180:in `process_args'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/command_manager.rb:149:in `run'
  from ….rbenv/…/ruby/…/gem_runner.rb:53:in `run'
  from ….rbenv/versions/3.1.0/bin/gem:13:in `<main>'
Add bin/dev to start foreman
      create  bin/dev
Compile initial Tailwind build
         run  rails tailwindcss:build from "."
+ /Users/stephan/.rbenv/versions/3.1.0/lib/ruby/gems/3.1.0/gems/tailwindcss-rails-2.0.5-x86_64-darwin/exe/x86_64-darwin/tailwindcss -i /Users/stephan/dev/tmp/a_new_app/app/assets/stylesheets/application.tailwind.css -o /Users/stephan/dev/tmp/a_new_app/app/assets/builds/tailwind.css -c /Users/stephan/dev/tmp/a_new_app/config/tailwind.config.js

Done in 228ms.

This is … interesting, since yard is found, when listing matching gems:

> gem list yard

*** LOCAL GEMS ***

yard (0.9.27)

However, the command that is running at this time is (apparently) executed in the context of Bundler. Since yard isn’t listed in the Gemfile, Bundler won’t find or use it:

bundle info yard
Could not find gem 'yard'.

After uninstalling yard, creating a new Rails app works fine and doesn’t log an exception.

While this solves the issue of getting the exception, it was still unclear why this happened in the first place.

Now, what is yard?

YARD is a documentation generation tool for the Ruby programming language.

https://github.com/lsegal/yard

Aha, looking into my .gemrc (which is used to configure Rubygems), I found these two lines (Yes, I like to have the documentation generated 🙂):

install: --rdoc --ri --document=yri
update: --rdoc --ri --document=yri

After removing the --document=yri, creating a new Rails app worked fine even with yard being installed.

I still don’t completely understand, why this is an issue when specifying a CSS processor, but not otherwise. This may be topic for another post.
If you have an idea about why this happens, please let me know.

Expressing Expectations

Experiment Feedback Learning Pattern Testing No Comments

Long long ago, while preparing experiments for my diploma thesis in physics, my tutor taught me to express my expectation of the outcome of experiments before actually running them. I was to not only to express them in my head, but speak them out loudly, may be even make a note.

This helped a lot, when figuring out where my thinking didn’t match the experimental evidence. There was no denying when my expectation differed from the empirical result. Typically, there were two sources for the differences:

  1. My mental model wasn’t good enough to match the result of an experiment.
  2. The experimental setup wasn’t designed well enough to show the effect I was trying to measure.

I find that this is still working well in software development (both the coding part as well as testing). A related article about this is Peter Naurs seminal paper ‘Programming as Theory Building’.

When doing TDD (test driven development), explicitly expressing the outcome before running a test may not always lead to a surprise. In the very beginning, when a test tries to create an object, without having a class definition, it will cause an error message that is easy to predict.

However, when work has progressed a bit, I regularly run into situation where I expect the next new test to fail in a certain way, but when running the test, the actual error message is a surprise to me. These are situations where learning can happen, by figuring out why the actual behaviour does occur, instead of what I predicted.

Near the end, the surprise is caused differently: I’ll write a new test and expect it to fail. – It doesn’t. Again, this is a good reason to explore why exactly I thought the test would fail.

Particularly in a pair (or ensemble) programming setup, the inability to come up with a new failing test is a sign, that the implementation is good enough … for now.

Recently, I did a programming exercise as part of a technical interview, and expressing my thoughts and expectations while working on the code helped me to find a solution. Additionally, the interviewer didn’t only see what I was typing, but could follow my way of thinking. This relates to Naur’s paper mentioned above: The testing and tested code I wrote isn’t everything there is to my mental model of the given problem or its solution. The way of thinking is important too. This is why I find vocally expressing my expectations & thinking while actually doing the work.

What are your preferred way to actually do the work you’re doing? I’d love to hear about it.

Agile Testing Days 2021 – Part 3

Conferences 1 Comment

If you haven’t you might be interested to read the previous part of this series as well.

This day impressed me most by the three key notes and discussing the effects of corona and working from home with Anne Colder.

Thursday

The first keynote of the day was Ard Kramer’s “How to nudge your way through agile testing”. Ard presented six ways to nudge people to make a decision in a certain way – probably a way that we want them to go. In a very consistent way he made the distinction between doing something (the nudging) and the ethics of doing it.

It’s so important to aware of these techniques, because then we can more consciously decide whether or not to follow the nudging.

These are the six kinds of nudging he explained:

  • Default options
  • Commitment through consistency
  • Anchoring
  • Decoy effect
  • Zeigarnik effect
  • Activate unconscious behaviour

The name Zeigarnik effect was new to me, although I read about the way it works somewhere on the net. Basically it states that one can remember an activity that has been interrupted (not not completed) more easily at a later point in time.

“The Tester’s Learning Toolkit” was the second keynote, presented by Vera Baum. Supported by incredibly great graphics Vera explained the various levels of experience people may have.

  1. Novice
  2. Apprentice
  3. Crafter
  4. Expert

She explained how we can develop from level to level, and why it may not be the best approach to let experts teach novices.

The last keynote of the day – and the conference – was Vernon Richards‘ “What does the ‘Coach’ in ‘Quality Coach’ mean?”. He introduced 6 styles of leadership and how they can be applied in the context of software quality. I loved his way of giving examples his experiences in applying them.

With this highly interesting and super entertaining keynote ended the official program of the Agile Testing Days 2021.

In the evening, I discussed the effects of having to work from home with Anne Colder, leading to another contribution for the ebook “Software People … Work From Home“. Stay tuned. 🙂

This ended a truly brilliant experience of the Agile Testing Days. It was so great to finally meet real testers in real live, discuss software related topics during breakfast, lunch and dinner… as well as in between.

Thank you! Thank you to everyone I spoke to, especially the organisers who ran an incredible conference!

Agile Testing Days 2021 – Part 2

Conferences Uncategorized 3 Comments

If you haven’t read it yet, you may like to start with the first part of my Agile Testing Days 2021 summary.

Wednesday

I started Wednesday with a Lean Coffee. At the Agile Testing Days this is traditionally facilitated by Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin.

We discussed a good number of topics, such as how to get folks to try new ways, ways to practice testing and the role of testing/testers. I like this way of quickly covering a broad field of topics, to give people input to work with. I recommend tying this format, if you haven’t done so yet.

Jutta Eckstein‘s keynote “Agile Comes with a Responsibility for Sustainability” covered the three main parts of sustainability:

  1. People, the social equity bottom line
  2. Planet, the environmental bottom line
  3. Profit, the economic bottom line

See for example the Wikipedia article about the ‘Triple Botton Line’ for more details. I find that these aspects are all incredibly important and also believe that we, the community of software people, have a shared responsibility to help achieve improvements in all three areas.

The second keynote on Wednesday was João Proença‘s “Limitless within our boundaries”. He explained nicely how limiting options can improve creative work. His example were his Band that got completely stuck, when they experienced the possibilities of a music studio for the first time. It’s the same in most other contexts, including software development. I very relaxed presentation style and body language. I found it super nice that he reminded me, that I recommended submitting a session to the Agile Testing Days – and I am really, really glad I did.

The session “Resistance is futile” by Anne Colder & Jantien van der Meer, was about how to facilitate changing behaviour. The session was Star Trek themed and I am luck I survived in my red shirt. 🙂 Details about the model of “The Rider, the elephant and the path” are, for example, available at https://www.creativehuddle.co.uk/post/the-elephant-and-the-rider. I like the way they explained the model as well as the exercises to illustrate how it can be used.

For me Bruce Hughes‘ keynote “How to be an Ally to Non-binary Folk in Tech” was next. It was brilliant, hilarious, sad and helpful. The standing ovations she received were absolutely well deserved. The blog post appache attack helicopter wrote at https://undevelopedbruce.com/2020/07/06/non-binary-in-tech/ explains what was covered in xer keynote. I recommend reading it. To her ‘appache attack helicopter’ is an acceptable pronouns BTW. See: https://undevelopedbruce.com/about-me/ (read that as well, I may help further understanding the complexities of existence). Lisi Hocke tweeted a great summary of this keynote:

The last session I attended as Søren Wassard‘s “Digesting Poets Society”. A very nice, relaxing and emotional bonus session about another way to get creative: Poems. We mostly heard English poems, but also one from a Welsh author, recited in Welsh by a Welsh (and no other than Bruce).

Part 3 of the series is available now, too.

© 2012-2023 Stephan Kämper — Mastodon

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