When do your chickens show up?

One thing with Scrum that I never really saw happen was chickens showing up for the daily stand-up and get a feel for where the team was heading. Essentially I never saw chickens other than in sprint demos. That was until recently.

When generic exceptions are useful

So this is not about catching the base exception but something kind of like using tuples; having an exception template using generics.

What's on tap? And stay hydrated!

Recently when I was experimenting with Spark and Scala I encountered two patterns that I liked; Tap and Hydrate. So I decided to add them to the toolbox as LINQ extensions.

Who writes acceptance criteria?

In the past I've seen two different approaches to user story acceptance criteria writing. My current team introduced a new variant I like. And it is related to how the military works.

Going swimming with kids in the US

Several years ago Eminem was interviewed by a Swedish journalist for a TV show targeting teens in Sweden. Eminem accidentally said fuck. Immediately he stopped playing cool and apologized like a little kid for using the f-word. The interviewer just laughed ans said he could say whatever he wanted on Swedish TV. This is an example of something Swedes (and probably most of the people living outside the US) find weird with people from the US; nudity and bad language is terrifying on TV while guns is OK. Something similar has happened to myself and friends when going swimming with the kids.

Testing with fakes or stubs? That is the question!

I like testing with stubs. But once in a while I encounter people that rather use fakes. And that is a pattern I try to avoid.

Spies and Stubs

I was reading this article which is a response to an email from a person liking mocks but disliking spies. Before starting to read I was confused since I personally dislike mocks and spies sounded even worse. However it turned out I was wrong.

What is your test ROI

When we write code we sometimes get carried away and forget to think about if we are spending our time right. However more common I see people (including myself) forgetting to think of cost vs benefit of the tests we write.

How long does it take to understand the value of currency?

In my old blog I had a number of posts that are useful to people relocating in general and US specifically. The other day something happened that made me think it was time to bring that topic back to life

The perfect cover letter

Recently a friend of mine applied for a new job. Since he did not know anybody at the company he realized he needed a good cover letter to get through the first filtering and get the recruiter's attention. And so he did...