Possible Air Travel Problems Call for More New Reading

So, I’m traveling to Toronto for the annual pilgrimage to the homeland for the holidays.  This time, for the first time in probably 6-7 years, my travel plans are threatened by winter weather.

The forecast is for snow.  Again.  But I think that the folks at Lester Pearson International know how to handle snow.  Since I’m flying direct, I’m hoping that’s enough to insure safe passage.

Just in case, I have three pieces of reading material to keep me company.  A novel, a magazine and a non-fiction tome.

The novel is “Next”, by the lamentably late Michael Crichton. I’m sad to see a Renaissance man’s untimely departure.  Just started.  Review to follow.

The magazine is Wired, January 2009.  An article on whether we should actually look for a cure for cancer, or simply look for ways to find it faster, caught my eye.  There’s an article about an individual aircraft too; the Icon A5.  Looking forward to relative fluff there..

The non-fiction tome is, “Spin-Free Economics“, by Nariman Behravesh.  So far, a partisan-free look at economic issues with a forward that chides both sides for perpetrating myths to their own ends.  Looking forward to delving further.

More to follow..

If my eyes tire, and the trip wears on, I have my trusty iPod loaded with NPR shows to keep me stimulated.

Yeah, I have music too.

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Possible Air Travel Problems Call for More New Reading

So, I’m traveling to Toronto for the annual pilgrimage to the homeland for the holidays.  This time, for the first time in probably 6-7 years, my travel plans are threatened by winter weather.

The forecast is for snow.  Again.  But I think that the folks at Lester Pearson International know how to handle snow.  Since I’m flying direct, I’m hoping that’s enough to insure safe passage.

Just in case, I have three pieces of reading material to keep me company.  A novel, a magazine and a non-fiction tome.

The novel is “Next”, by the lamentably late Michael Crichton. I’m sad to see a Renaissance man’s untimely departure.  Just started.  Review to follow.

The magazine is Wired, January 2009.  An article on whether we should actually look for a cure for cancer, or simply look for ways to find it faster, caught my eye.  There’s an article about an individual aircraft too; the Icon A5.  Looking forward to relative fluff there..

The non-fiction tome is, “Spin-Free Economics“, by Nariman Behravesh.  So far, a partisan-free look at economic issues with a forward that chides both sides for perpetrating myths to their own ends.  Looking forward to delving further.

More to follow..

If my eyes tire, and the trip wears on, I have my trusty iPod loaded with NPR shows to keep me stimulated.

Yeah, I have music too.

Back to the Stone Age

Holy Crap!

I am setting up housekeeping here in California and I’m living on the banks of the 101 freeway (read: high-tech corridor) and the apartment I moved into has: no cable Internet service, no High-Definition cable channels, they don’t have Golf Channel and they don’t even have MSNBC! 

WTF!

Coming from Columbia, South Carolina I’ve had cable Internet service for 10 freaking years!  Full digital cable and HD for 3 years..

What gives?

Do you remember DSL?  I don’t..  but I will now.

California.  High-tech corridor.  In the same town as AmGen and Countrywide.

Who knew..

Well, Vacation is Coming..

So, I took a Delta flight out this time and I’ll tell you I miss having status on the airline I’m traveling on. It gets pretty easy when you get to board with the folks in first class, even when you aren’t in first class.

And United has the EconoPlus area on virtually all of their planes. Get an exit row, and you have a lot more leg room than you would in first class too. No food/drink service, but I can deal… Most of these posts are created on the plane, and the best ones are in EconoPlus (so far).

On the other hand, I am happy to be traveling on the southern route. No snow in my path, to or fro.

Christmas vacation is next week. On Thursday next, instead of flying to South Carolina, I’ll be flying direct from LA to Toronto where I’ll have a deserved 10 day vacation before resuming the commute after New Year.

I’m hearing rumblings that this account will be ‘transitioned’ soon. Meaning, I’ll be traveling to (hopefully) closer accounts in the New Year. I like the folks I’m working with but damn, what a schedule. I’m averaging about 24 hours of travel every week. Add 40 hours of developing/mentoring and it’s a work week that I gave up when I moved south 9 years ago.

Back and Forth, Back and Forth

Where are we? There is some turbulence and it’s about 5:30EST right now, so there are about 2 hours (hopefully) until we get to the gate in Washington (IAD).

Yup, it’s Thursday night again (Friday morning?) and I’m winging my way back home for the weekend. Ah, Denver Center is now our ATC contact. And we’re at 37,000 feet which means eastbound (odd numbers east, even numbers west).

So, last week I was on vacation and I left my guys to fend for themselves with the project. They didn’t go too far astray, but we discovered that NCover was reporting 45% test coverage on the work. Not good.

We were assigned a new developer too. This manager is really getting it together. All we need now is a common work area, and co-location.

Because of the crappy coverage, we put aside a couple of (ill defined) cards for the iteration and set about getting the coverage up to 100%.

Why 100%? Judging by my previous post on testing, you’d think that 85% or so would be good enough. Partly punishment, you suggest? Nah.

There was a comment by my buddy, the Big Guy, who pointed out correctly, that even in the case of mutators (getters and setters), the test isn’t supposed to know that the implementation is simple. I don’t remember if that’s what he said exactly, but I think that was the intent. (No net connection airborne is a pain).

I never was that strict about it, but the more I work with newbie TDD practitioners, the more strict I think one has to be (at least to start with). The Big Guy was right; for once. 😉

I left my team today with the assignment of creating a Presenter and View interface to an MDI frame. The idea is that we can more easily test the Presenters using a stubbed view that implements the interface. I don’t allow the creation of a WinForm until the IView is completely expressed and tested using the Presenter tests and the stub. Even the diehard VBists in the group can’t help but being impressed with the results.

The application will require some context-sensitive smarts so that the user doesn’t walk into a trap. I hope I don’t find a nasty bit waiting for me on Monday. One of my guys loves reflection.

I like reflection too, when there’s no other way to do it simply.

Do the simplest thing that could work…

My wife has given the suggestion that I ought to stay out on the west coast every other weekend, thereby relieving some of this travel fatigue. I’m going to try it pretty soon too.

I hate not seeing the family, and I hate seeing them for 12 hours and leaving again; it’s kind of lose-lose.

I guess this is the biggest reason for turnover at ThoughtWorks.