What Can We Learn from an Incorrect TDD Diagram?
A paper published in 2013 about Test Driven Development included the following diagram. Unfortunately, it gets some things wrong:
Where Will Jon Be in Fall 2017?
Do you enjoy conferences and workshops? Here’s my conference schedule for this fall:
October 7–8: Intro to TDD (non iOS) in San Jose
Last year, I attended Silicon Valley Code Camp for the first time. This year, I’ll be teaching a session: Intro to Test Driven Development.
This won’t be specific to iOS development. Instead, it’ll be platform agnostic, for anyone with a little programming experience.
This year, it’ll be hosted at the PayPal campus in San Jose, California. Details are still coming, and I don’t know yet when my session will be. But you can’t beat the price, which will be little more than a nominal lunch fee.
Send any programmers you know in the area. Also managers! They’ll get a taste of TDD from someone who’s been practicing it since 2001.
Register for SVCC
October 25–26: TDD Workshop in Seattle
My one-day TDD Workshop for iOS Developers has been well-received in Verona, San Jose, Chicago, and Indianapolis. This time, it’s coming to Seattle as part of Swift by Northwest.
The last time I taught the workshop (for a company, not a conference), I kept saying, “Wow, there’s so much we can cover. This could easily be a two-day workshop.” So guess what? This time, you can spend two solid days with me, learning Test Driven Development for iOS!
Register for WorkshopEarly-Bird Tuition sale ends on September 1.
October 27–28: Swift by Northwest
The intimate traveling conference CocoaConf has stopped traveling. It’s roosted in Seattle, and taken on a new name. I’m honored to be included in the launch of Swift by Northwest!
My session will be on the SOLID Design Principles. But I want to try something a little different this time:
- No slides. Live scribbling instead.
- Not a “presentation,” but a seminar. There will be discussion.
I think it’ll be a lot of fun. From our shared experiences, we’ll all become better software designers.
Register for Swift by NWEarly-Bird Conference sale ends on September 2.
Will you be at any of these events? Let me know by leaving a note below!
Generate Test Scaffolding & Stay Focused
Quickly generate code for either Swift or Objective-C. Code snippets provided for both Xcode and AppCode.
Single Responsibility Principle: Is It a Fundamental Mistake?
The “Single Responsibility Principle” (SRP) sounds so noble. But I’m afraid it’s misunderstood and misapplied. Ask your teammates: “What is the Single Responsibility Principle?” Go ahead, ask them. Then ask if the SRP is a good thing or a bad thing. I’d bet many of them will say something like this: “In principle, it’s a good idea. But in practice, it’s overkill.”
SOLID Motivational Posters by Derick Bailey, used under CC BY-SA 3.0 US
On Twitter, Chris Eidhof pointed to an example of taking the Single Responsibility Principle too far. Specifically, Chris was unhappy with the argument that Singletons violate the SRP because, besides their main responsibility, they also manage their own life cycle:
This argument against singletons made me cringe (specifically, the SRP point): https://t.co/C9wVVnqHFs
— Chris Eidhof (@chriseidhof) June 29, 2017
This led to a lively discussion. Many reacted against “over-architecture.” No doubt they experienced fragmented code that grew from over-zealous attempts at SRP.
I think that SRP isn’t just over-applied. It’s fundamentally misunderstood, even misquoted. The repeated misquotes perpetuate that misunderstanding.
Let’s see if we can clear things up, and point to a better way.
Automatically Generate Swift tearDown with This AppCode Plugin
Those of you who are regular visitors to qualitycoding.org may have already read Jon’s article outlining the life cycle of XCTestCase objects during the execution of a test suite. If you haven’t, or you want to refresh your memory, take a moment to read the original article.
Jon discusses the importance of the setUp and tearDown methods. And, more specifically, why we should be deallocating our properties in the tearDown method.
Writing a tear down method is one of those repetitive tasks. It follows a specific pattern: all properties should be set to nil. It doesn’t really require any brain power. It’s just one of those annoying tasks that you have to remember to do when writing a test.
It’s tasks like this that should be automated. And now with the Swift tear down inspection AppCode plugin, we can.
Please Take My 2017 Reader Survey
I want to ensure my platform does the best possible job of answering your needs and interests. And that means I need to know more about you. To do that, I’ve created my 2017 Reader Survey.
Would you please take a few minutes to fill out the survey? By doing so, you will ultimately be helping yourself. Why? Because you will be helping me create content even more interesting and relevant to you.
Your input is important to me. The survey is easy to fill out, and the results are completely anonymous. I can’t tell who said what. And you can finish in five minutes.
Yes, I’m Happy to Help. Take Me to the Survey!Thanks in advance for your help.
Refactoring Demo: Is It More than Just Changing Stuff?
Refactoring. It’s a word I hear quite a bit. Usually, in the context of conversations with management, it means, “Rewriting that thing. Hopefully without introducing bugs.” Often, among developers, it means, “One of the options in the Refactoring menu in my IDE.”
Revealing Hidden Objects: Can DDD Improve Your Code?
Code that’s easier to understand, maintain, and extend — that’s the promise of Object-Oriented Programming. But the reality for many iOS developers is that our objects are bloated. They know too much, and do too much. What if our code has hidden objects, waiting to be found?
Each hidden object could provide a new abstraction, a new tool. They could make the code more manageable. Is there a way to discover these hidden objects? Domain Driven Design (DDD) provides a way.
Hide and seek by Nicola Albertini, used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
How to Make Swift Mock Objects More Useful
I’ve written about my experience of going to try! Swift Tokyo 2017. Now thanks to the video and transcript provided by Realm, I can also share the talk I gave: “Making Mock Objects More Useful”.
I start by showing the basics of how to make a mock object by hand. But this easily leads to fragile tests because the assertions are overspecified. We need ways to make tests more malleable, with mocks that are more flexible.
How to Safely Parse JSON into Immutable Models, All with TDD
How can we unit test JSON parsing, handling every possible error? Can we generate immutable models? And for Swift, how can we keep our Response Models free of optionals?
Of course, there areb many JSON parsing libraries out there. Plug one in, define all fields as non-optional, and you’re good to go! …Until your app crashes, because something was different in the actual JSON data.
Conflict 3 by Flavio~, used under CC BY-NC 2.0
Unlikely? “The backend team would never do that to us”? I’ve had a released app crash because the backend folks changed one field from a string to an integer. I’ve seen app development and QA forced to pause because a commit assumed all fields were non-optional. (It crashed on the missing field, because Swift.)
So let’s look at a pattern that will help us
- Handle required types
- Avoid optionals
- Deliver immutable models
Even if you never plan to do your own parsing, we’ll learn things along the way about design and testing.
Love Swift? Want to Visit Charming / Quirky Japan?
If you’re interested in Swift development, and want to visit Japan, start making plans to go to the next try! Swift conference in Tokyo. It was my privilege to be a speaker earlier this month.
Let me share my impressions of the conference, and why you might consider making the trip there.
(But first, a side-note about this blog: Sorry I’ve been so quiet lately! I was spending my time preparing for try! Swift Tokyo 2017. Next up is CocoaConf Chicago, where I’ll be leading a TDD workshop in addition to giving a talk. But I’ve also continued to TDD a JSON parsing example, in both Objective-C and Swift versions, so I have plenty to blog about. To make sure you don’t miss any new articles, you can sign up to get updates via email.)
Logo
“Riko”, the official logo of try! Swift Tokyo
First, let me point out the conference’s logo/mascot. The Swift bird has never been so adorable! Without a doubt, this is the cutest tech conference logo I’ve ever seen.