Looking through my sitemeter logs as I'm wont to due from time to time I found this article from Eamonn McManus who is now at Sun. He was in my class in TCD from 1983 to 1987. Lets see, I reckon its about fifteen years since I met Eamonn. A small world.

posted by Sean 8:08 AM

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Pick up your Expat XML Parser and XPath implementation for the Nokia Series 60 cellphone here.

posted by Sean 4:46 AM

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It has taken generations for this simple, brilliant idea to take hold in this industry. As a relatively recent convert to TDD I can attest (sorry) to the power this simple idea encapsulates.

I do a lot of work in the Java ecosystem. Two words spring to mind - actually three. Confidence, documentation and Jython.

Confidence : TDD raises your confidence level in your software. Every step of the way your have a full test suite. Every step of the way you have a mechanism for catching the knock-on effects that accompany even the smallest change in source code. TDD has saved my life so many times...

Documentation : "Read the source, Luke" has been joined by a less daunting epiteth : "Read the tests, Luke". Test scripts are a great source of real documentation for how objects/methods/apis/interfaces are to be used and not to be used. When the Javadoc fails you, hit the tests.

Jython : Anybody coding in a statically compiled programming language that is not using a dynamically typed programming language for the tests, has missed a golden opportunity for a productivity leap. In the C world, CPython. In the .NET world, IronPython. In the Java world, Jython.

Jython has quietly carved out a niche for itself in the testing area. Some examples:

• Write Eclipse JUnit Tests in Jython - this is a recently published article about unit testing with Jython but there are tons more. Google is your friend.
  
  
• PushToTest is an Open Source test automation system that uses Jython
  
  
• Grinder provides a load testing framework for executing
  Jython scripts across many threads, processes and machines; and allows
  the whole shebang to be controlled from a graphical console.
  

posted by Sean 3:40 AM

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Fast forward to forward compatibility is this weeks ITWorld e-Business in the Enterprise article. It concerns the lopsided relationship between forward and backward compatability in the application software game.

posted by Sean 2:09 AM

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Coming to a NetBeans distro near you soon : dynamic-language infrastructure.

Splen. Brill. Excele. Aweso. Fanta.

posted by Sean 5:47 AM

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Today I finally got around to putting a news update on jython.org and sending an e-mail to the Jython lists about recent events of interest.

I have added some entries to Jython users. If you have any Jython project you would like to see listed, let me know.

posted by Sean 7:03 AM

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