The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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The SquizLogKeith Pitty takes a squiz at the world. |
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Ah, how sweet it is! I couldn't have imagined a better birthday present.
One gets forgetful as one's age increases. Dave just reminded me that it's my birthday! I like to think that I'm still 19... only now I have to use base 37 arithmetic.
Selenium is a tool I've been meaning to explore for quite a while now. Automated unit testing tools like JUnit are great but only go so far.
For web apps, a more complete test coverage has to include tests via a browser. I've used HttpUnit in the past - it comes close in that it simulates web conversations. But there's quite an overhead in using HttpUnit and it can't compete with a tool like Selenium that allows scripts to be run in a browser.
Last week at OSDC Richard Jones gave a lightning talk that presented Selenium in a very impressive light. So, it's high time I got my hands dirty. If anybody reading this has used Selenium I'd be grateful for your comments on how effective you've found it.
Seven balls. That's all it took for Monty Panesar to take his first Ashes wicket. Panesar 1/0 and Australia 3/69 at lunch. Now that England have finally included Panesar, it will be fascinating to see if he can turn the series around for the Poms.
Beer and Ruby on Rails!
Sounds like a winning combination to me so I'll definitely be attending the Ales on Rails XMAS Meetup (the final meeting of the Ruby on Rails Australia group for 2006) this evening.
Yes, I survived and enjoyed OSDC in Melbourne last week! My presentation seemed to be well received, much to my relief.
Talks on the last two days that I enjoyed included Richard Jones on 3D graphics using Python, Mark Rees on Agile Scripting Languages based on Mono, Tennessee Leeuwenburg on Automatic Text Generation and Weather Forecasting, Andy Todd on databases with Python, Myles Byrne on Ruby DSLs, Steve Goschnick's Multi-Agent System and Andrew Bennetts' Coding in a Distributed Team, not to mention several brilliant lightning talks.
Besides the sense of achievement in presenting a paper, I learnt a lot, discovered all sorts of things to learn more about (if I ever have the time) and generally had fun surrounded by lots of clever people. Photos (many of them thanks to Andy) are to be found on flickr.
Update: Slides and the paper for my presentation can be found here.
I enjoyed a stimulating day at OSDC today, despite the sad fact that my wireless adapter failed to work :(
Highlights for me, apart from impressive keynotes from Randal Schwartz and Damian Conway (simply brilliant!), were the Rails/Django comparison by Ben Askins and Alan Green, the somewhat obtusely titled "RESTful Software Development and Maintenance" talk from David Hyland-Wood and the passionate Web Security call to action by Chris Burgess.
My turn to present tomorrow morning!
"England can't win it", I had confidently predicted after they finished the first day of the Adelaide Test at 3/266. "They scored too slowly. A team needs to score at least 300 on the first day of a Test to give themselves time to bowl the other team out twice."
"Draw for sure", I said this morning without giving any other outcome a second thought. With England 1/59 in their second innings after both teams had scored in excess of 500 in their first inningses I think most bookmakers would have agreed with me!
But, in arguably the most amazing final day of a Test, Australia managed to conjure a victory thanks to an amazing spell from Warne, excellent support from Lee, McGrath and Clark and another cool-headed run-accumulation master class from Mike Hussey.
As I sat in the hotel lounge marvelling at the scenes at the end of the match, a lady walked by the television and asked wide-eyed, "did they win?" The look on her face said it all. This incredible final day's play had captured her imagination along with countless others.
Michael Clarke has just brought up his hundred at the Adelaide Oval! It's going to be hard for them to drop him now.