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Rachel Getting Married

Submitted by alastairs on 16 January 2010 - 10:22pm

StarStarStarStar

An excellent and intimate portrayal of internal conflict, addiction and loss, featuring a superb lead performance from Anne Hathaway.

Rachel Getting Married: Left to Right: Anne Hathaway as Kym, Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel. Photo by Bob Vergara © 2007 Sniscak Productions, INC. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics. All Rights Reserved.Rachel Getting Married: Left to Right: Anne Hathaway as Kym, Rosemarie DeWitt as Rachel.
Photo by Bob Vergara © 2007 Sniscak Productions, INC. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics. All Rights Reserved.

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Image of Rachel Getting Married [DVD] [2008]

Windows Live Writer

Submitted by alastairs on 14 January 2010 - 10:49pm

I’ve heard many good things about Windows Live Writer as a blogging tool, so I thought I’d give it a go.  Drupal’s great an’ all, but entering HTML manually to format your post is so 2001.  So, here’s my first post from Live Writer!

{ Insert Obligatory Image Here }: Image © 2007 MichaelMaggs{ Insert Obligatory Image Here }: Image © 2007 MichaelMaggs

Daybreakers

Submitted by alastairs on 9 January 2010 - 12:30am

StarStarStarHalf-star

This mongrel transcends the vampire genre, but the final descent into unmitigated gore ruins an otherwise interesting premise.

Daybreakers: We're the ones holding the crossbowsDaybreakers: We're the ones holding the crossbows

Harry Brown

Submitted by alastairs on 8 January 2010 - 10:32pm

StarStarStarStar

This bleak and, at times, disturbing revenge flick sees Michael Caine deliver another strong performance in a story that might be considered over-egged.

Harry Brown: Even in his 70s, Michael Caine is still bad-assHarry Brown: Even in his 70s, Michael Caine is still bad-ass

Code Complete: Working Classes (Part 2 - Good Class Interfaces)

Submitted by alastairs on 24 December 2009 - 7:33pm

This post represents the second instalment taken from chapter 6 of Code Complete, entitled "Working Classes". This post covers the issues to consider when designing class interfaces, illustrated with code samples. An important piece of information to keep in mind when reading this post is that McConnell is talking in terms of the public interface exposed by a class through its public members. While an interface (as defined in Java or C#) also fits this bill, some of the advice given here is specific to the idea of a class interface, and not a standalone interface.

If you're after the executive summary (this is quite a long post, after all), there are only two things you must build into your class interfaces: good abstraction and good encapsulation. Read on to find out more.

Code Complete: Working Classes (Part 1 - Class Foundations: Abstract Data Types)

Submitted by alastairs on 24 December 2009 - 12:01pm

Another day, another Code Complete blog post. I might even clear two today, looking at the number of notes I have for this one.

The last post rounded off the contribution to the discussion around the problems of designing software. A new chapter means a new topic, and chapter 6, titled "Working Classes", deals with tips on, and the issues around, creating classes in your program. First up is the topic of Abstract Data Types: what they are, why you should be interested, and how you should use them.

Code Complete: Design in Construction (Part 4 - Design Practices)

Submitted by alastairs on 23 December 2009 - 3:54pm

Wow, it's been quite a while since I updated my Code Complete series, and I've got quite the backlog to wade through now! Looking at the last save date on this post, it's been sat around for three months waiting to be written, so I'm sorry for being so slack, and I'll get on with writing it now...

This post covers some key design practices, and is the last post on Chapter 5, Design in Construction.

An Education

Submitted by alastairs on 26 November 2009 - 9:59pm

StarStarStarStarHalf-star

This moving story of a teenager growing up in 1960s London charms, startles, amuses, shakes and delights in equal measure.
An Education: L-R Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Peter Saarsgard, Carey MulliganAn Education: L-R Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Peter Saarsgard, Carey Mulligan

NMock 2 vs Moq

Submitted by alastairs on 22 November 2009 - 1:13pm

You may remember from my previous blog post on mocking frameworks that I'm a bit of a fan of this kind of tool. They're great for simplifying unit testing, and can also help guide you in to writing better, more loosely-coupled code via Dependency Injection.

Last night I spent some time porting some of my unit tests for a side project I'm working on from NMock 2 to Moq 4 (currently in beta). My reasons for switching were three-fold: first, NMock can only mock interfaces which was causing problems with testing some parts of my code that relied on elements of the ASP.NET MVC framework; second, NMock is unable to support some of the newer features of .NET as it was written to target .NET 2.0 (whilst each version of Moq is matched to the respective version of .NET, so the Moq 4 beta can utilise the C# 4.0 goodies like dynamic typing); last, the NMock project doesn't seem to be as active as it once was, with the last official build released in January 2008.

As a result of this switch, I'm in more of a position to critically evaluate NMock and Moq than I was when I wrote my original post. Here's a summary of my thoughts and experiences.

Stack Overflow Dev Days - London

Submitted by alastairs on 8 November 2009 - 6:56pm

On Wednesday 28 October 2009, Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood brought their Stack Overflow sideshow to London's Kensington Town Hall, and I was lucky enough to be one of the ~1000 people attending.

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