Jeff Atwood: Building Social Software for the Antisocial

This is only of interest to people who are into Stack Overflow.

Have you ever wondered why Stack Overflow is exactly the way it is? Here are some insights.

(Note: this presentation violates one of the cardinal rules of presentations, which is to avoid long texts, so here is a tip: ignore every screen that contains a long text, just listen to what Jeff Atwood is saying.)

Note: as I look at him, I can't help but think that all he is missing is the upward curved tie, i.e. he has to be the real-life person after whom Dilbert was fashioned.

IntelliJ IDEA can now exclude methods from code coverage

Screenshot from "What's New in IntelliJ IDEA 2022.3"

The latest version of IntelliJ IDEA supports a new option for excluding certain methods from code coverage by annotation, and it is the result of a feature request posted by me!

Setting up Windows

Instructions for future reference.

How to ALWAYS show all icons on the Windows 11 taskbar

To always show all system tray icons in Windows 11:

Open the Run prompt (Win+R) and execute the following nonsense:

explorer shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}

In the dialog that appears, there will be a checkbox to always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar.

Original source of information: TheWindowsClub

<rant-mode>

About these papers

I am one of those people who choose to publish their ideas on a blog. 

The practical reason behind doing this is so that in a conversation I can refer my interlocutor to a text which elucidates my points better than I could conversationally. Admittedly, the opportunity to do this does not arise as often as I wish it did, and even when it does happen, about half the time the interlocutor appears to be reluctant to go and actually read the post, so let's just say that I publish my ideas mainly because I like doing it.

Incremental Integration Testing

Abstract:

A new method for Automated Software Testing is presented as an alternative to Unit Testing. The new method retains the benefit of Unit Testing, which is Defect Localization, but eliminates the need for mocking, thus greatly lessening the effort of writing and maintaining tests.

Software Testing with Fakes instead of Mocks

Abstract:

What are fakes, what are their benefits, and why they are incontestably preferable over mocks. Also, how to create fakes if needed.

Introduction

50 things expected of developers

Games industry veteran Mike Acton gave talk/rant at GDC (Game Developers' Conference) 2019 where he listed 50 things he expects of developers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV5HArLYajE  This list was transcribed by Adam Johnson and posted here: https://adamj.eu/tech/2022/06/17/mike-actons-expectations-of-professional-software-engineers/ and I am copying it here for posterity.

I found this list useful as reference material; some of the items on this list do not apply to my job because I rarely do anything especially performance-oriented nowadays, and some of the items on the list are good to always have in mind but subject to the programmer's own judgement, on a case by case basis, whether they should be practiced or not.

Here it is:

The Deployable Design Document

Abstract

A need is identified and a solution is proposed for a novel set of software tools to facilitate the visual composition of technical software design documents as schematic diagrams consisting of predefined software components, and the automatic deployment of runnable software systems from such design documents.

On Microsoft "Visual" products

The logo from Visio version 1.0

This post is intended as support material for another post of mine; see michael.gr - The Deployable Design Document.

One day back in the early nineties, when people were using Windows 3.0 and programming with the Microsoft C/C++ Compiler, a colleague showed me a software design that for the first time he had done not on whiteboard, nor on paper, but on a computer screen, using a new drawing tool called Visio. 

Screenshots of Visio 1.0 running under Windows 3.1. Click to enlarge.

He showed me interconnected components laid out on a canvas, and as he moved one of the components, the drawing tool re-routed the lines to maintain the connections to other components. This meant that Visio was not just a pixel drawing utility like Microsoft Paint; it had some understanding of the structure of the information that was being displayed.