Hooray for HDA!

Just came across this thing called the “Amahi Home Linux Server”, something they refer to as a HDA or Home Digital Assistant. Looks like a pretty nice idea. I haven’t tried it yet – I just found it and don’t really have a spare machine that would be appropriate right now. But what interests me is that it’s very much like something I was working on about 10 years ago that I called “Home AIWeb”.

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Reading a Classic

It seems that as software engineers it takes so much time and effort keeping up with technology that all we ever have time to read are technical books and materials. But we really should get out of that rut when we can. I’ve lately been reading something of a classic. Continue reading

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Autodelegation: A Multiple-Inheritance Alternative

While working in .NET and Java, on (admittedly rare) occasions I’ve wanted multiple-inheritance. Or I’ve had an implementation of an interface that I would like to extend, but the implementation was final. Essentially there have been times I’ve wanted to incorporate some existing functionality into a new class where inheritance seemed the most natural way but couldn’t. Something I would like to see in a language is what I call “autodelegation”.

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Back in the saddle

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted here. I started this blog soon after being laid off. I started a new job in May, moving from .NET back to Java development. Then in October the economy started hitting my new employer and they decided to close the local office I was working out of so I was laid off AGAIN! Fortunately I was able to find another position quickly, again in Java development. In the midst of all that there were family illnesses, loss of a relative, heat pump conking out, and a myriad other slings and arrows.

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Which came first? (Chickens, code, eggs, and unit tests)

Kevin’s comment on my previous post brings up a couple of good points which, as I thought about them, are very closely related. One is the “test-first” approach – writing unit tests prior to the code to be tested. The other is how do you ensure that you have sufficiently tested your code.

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(Unit) Testing 1 2 3

I’ll probably be posting quite a bit about unit testing in this blog. NOT because I’m an expert in the topic – far from it. I’m also not particularly interested in discussing the efficacy of unit testing in general – that’s something that has been well covered many other places. Rather I’m going to assume that you, the reader, are already familiar with unit testing and are probably already using it. My interest here lies in exploring the difficult situations that may be encountered while attempting to test code.

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Booting up…

Welcome to “Left Out In The Code” – a blog concerned primarily with discussing software development concepts of every ilk. I’m your host, Eddie Sheffield, Jr., a software engineer in the New River Valley of Virginia. If you’re interested, you may view my resume. I may on occasion chat about other, non-software development topics, but those will likely be rare.

One note: I’m going to keep things civil around here. Comments are welcomed and encouraged, and I have no problem with disagreements – I hope to learn even more from this blog than you are, so I expect people to disagree with me. But I will not tolerate rudeness – keep it civil and polite, please. If I post something you think is wrong, by all means point it out, but explain why it’s wrong. I reserve the right to remove any comments I feel cross the line.

My house. My rules. It’s good to be the king.

That said, let’s move along…

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