2025-04-06

The confusion about the term Unit Testing

Virtually everyone claims to be doing Unit Testing, but there is a surprising amount of disagreement as to how unit testing is defined. Let us see what the authorities on the subject have to say about it. What follows is mainly quotations from reputable sources, with some minimal commentary by me.

2025-02-25

On Moore's Law

It is not a law.

It never was a law.

An observation is all that it ever was, or a prediction, but not a law.

And surprise, it does not hold true anymore.  

The prophecy was false, after all.

2025-02-10

The best code review comment ever

I just wrote a code review comment that I feel particularly smug about. 

The code I was reviewing: 

class PointClouds ...

My comment: 

It is a bad idea to have a type name in plural. If you need to signify plurality, use a plurality-signifying suffix in singular form, as in:

  • PointCloudCollection
  • PointCloudSet
  • PointCloudGroup
  • or go creative with PointCloudFormation
  • or take creativity to a whole new level with PointCumulonimbus

Anything but a plural type name.

 

2024-10-28

Testana: A better way of running tests

Abstract:

A software testing tool is presented, which uses dependency analysis to greatly optimize the process of running tests.

2024-10-02

On the evolutionary origin of reasoning

Biological anthropologists generally agree that humans evolved reasoning to facilitate hunting together as a group; however, there are many other species that hunt in packs, and yet reasoning is unique to humans. Therefore, in order to explain reasoning, it is not enough to consider how it was beneficial to us; we also need to consider what enabled reasoning to emerge specifically in humans as opposed to any other species.

I have a hypothesis which attempts to explain how this happened.

2024-09-27

Continuous Code Quality Improvement

While working on code in the context of a certain task, a programmer often discovers some preexisting quality issue. When this happens, there is a choice to be made:

  • Fix the quality issue on the spot, and commit the fix in the context of the task at hand; or:
  • Only make changes that are strictly necessary for the task at hand, and introduce a separate task for fixing the quality issue.

The 'gay gene' paradox

What causes homosexuality? The predominant understanding is that the causes are genetic, but this seems to be in conflict with the notion of natural selection: an individual who does not reproduce is a dead-end for the genes that they carry; therefore, the 'gay gene' should have gone extinct. A number of hypotheses have been proposed, attempting to resolve this paradox, but they are not very convincing. In this post I present a couple of my own hypotheses, which I believe do a better job at resolving the paradox.

2024-07-15

The Ju52 cocktail

How to make the Ju52 cocktail:

In a tall glass with no ice, mix the following:

2 parts coffee liqueur (e.g. Kahlúa (W))

2 parts cream liqueur (e.g. Baileys Irish Cream (W))

1 part orange liqueur (e g. Grand Marnier (W))

4 parts cold milk.

The special guy that I am, I had to go invent my own cocktail. As its name betrays, it is similar to B52 (W). In fact, the Ju52 is just B52 with cold milk instead of ice.

 


The benefits

The replacement of ice with cold milk imparts the following benefits to the drink:

2024-07-01

On preferred pronouns

It is becoming customary in western societies to ask people in various settings to state their preferred pronouns. It started among younger people of the particularly woke persuasion, and it is spreading everywhere. When I find myself in such a setting, I do of course go along, because doing otherwise would be awkward, but I hope that it is only a fad which will eventually go away. While waiting to see how it pans out, let me describe a few issues I have with it.