A few times during the past year I got tired of trying to remember the Unix/Linux sed syntax while wanting to make edits to many files, so this weekend I wrote a little sed-like Scala class.
Alvin Alexander | Java, Scala, Unix, Perl, Mac OS X
I think I’ve discovered the secret of life: you just hang around until you get used to it.
~ Charles M. Schulz
“Scope doesn’t creep; understanding grows.”
From Jeff Patton in User Story Mapping (something I tried to explain to people many years ago)
Table of Contents1 - Benefits of automated GUI testing2 - Keys to automated GUI testing and continuous integration3 - Beware automated GUI testing software sales pitches and recorders
Introduction: I first wrote this article about automated GUI testing many years ago, but I find that it still holds today.
I just wrote most of the following note on the Apple Mac Java-dev mailing list, and I'd like to share it here as well, because I think it captures my thoughts on the benefits of automated GUI testing and GUI testing software.
I ran automated GUI tests part-time (4-6 hours per week) on a project with 8-12 developers, and saw some good benefits. True, in the 80/20 rule, 80% of the problems were due to UI changes and communication, like “We forgot to tell you we split the Name field into First Name and Last Name,” but with a good automated GUI testing tool, one test may fail, but the rest of the automated GUI test suite keeps running (see Fowler’s continuous integration). Furthermore, with a good GUI testing tool, something like this is also a minor change to get the test running again.
I put my Scala String Utilities library on Github a few days ago. It includes my Q String Interpolator, and several other string utility functions. It also demonstrates how to write ScalaTest and ScalaCheck tests with an SBT project.
This Wikipedia page on continuous integration is actually a good resource for computer programming best practices.
I’m pleased to announce that my book, Functional Programming, Simplified, is now available in three formats:
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PDF Format
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Paperback Book
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Kindle eBook
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New book/story idea: Life is a bit of a game, and as a result you’re put in the vicinity of your soulmate. Not right next door per se, but somewhere within your range of life such that you will encounter this person, such as the friend of a friend, someone you work with, a person you run into at a store, etc. So the game is, out of all the people you meet as your life unfolds, can you identify your soulmate? And maybe as a secondary plot, how do you handle it if you get get close but make a mistake ... say you marry a person which creates circumstances that put you in the vicinity of your soulmate, and you later realize your mistake?
This is a favorite quote from the book, Zen Training. Anyone who has ever meditated deeply at home, in the mountains, or on retreat has probably had these feelings.
Scala community build is an interesting project, which is described like this:
“This repository contains configuration files that enable us to build and test a corpus of Scala open source projects together using Lightbend's `dbuild`. How big is it? It’s 3.2 million lines of Scala code, total, from 185 projects (as of January, 2019), and takes about 15 hours to run.”
“Why do this? The main goal is to guard against regressions in new versions of Scala (language, standard library, and modules). It’s also a service to the open source community, providing early notice of issues and incompatibilities.”
As a note to self, I added SSL/TLS certificates to a couple of websites using LetEncrypt. Here are a couple of notes about the process:
- Read the LetEncrypt docs
- They suggest using certbot
- Read those docs
- After making some backups, run this command as root:
I just ran across this photo of my old apartment. I liked using a shoji screen to add a temporary “wall” in different spaces, and I used to keep Christmas lights going for most of the winter evenings, as shown.
Here’s a link to my Scala String utilities, which includes a few hopefully-useful string utility functions, some of which are shown in the image. My “Q” interpolator is also included in that library.
I ran into a couple of interesting things today when trying to generate random alphanumeric strings in Scala, which can be summarized like this. I won’t get into the “random” stuff I was working on, but here are a couple of examples of how to generate lists of alphanumeric/ASCII characters in Scala:
scala> val chars = ('a' to 'Z').toList
chars: List[Char] = List()
scala> val chars = ('A' to 'z').toList
chars: List[Char] =
List(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L,
M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X,
Y, Z, [, \, ], ^, _, `, a, b, c, d,
e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p,
q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z)
scala> val chars = (' ' to 'z').toList
chars: List[Char] =
List( , !, ", #, $, %, &, ', (, ), *, +,
,, -, ., /, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, :, ;, <, =, >, ?, @, A, B, C,
D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O,
P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, [,
\, ], ^, _, `, a, b, c, d, e, f, g,
h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s,
t, u, v, w, x, y, z)
When it comes to working as a business analyst, I’ve learned that there are just three things you need to keep in your mind when meeting with your customers (the project sponsor (gold owner) and domain experts (“goal donors”)) to gather requirements. These three thoughts will keep your meeting on track, lead you to the next question, and will help you know when your work is done.
As one last photo of Alaska (for the time being), here’s the Arctic Circle sign that you’ll find on the Dalton Highway north of Fairbanks, on the way up north to places like Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay.
Here’s another view of Denali from the rivers in Talkeetna in mid-September. As I always add, Denali is at least 60-70 miles away in this photo.
When I lived in Alaska I was told that you can only see Denali one day out of every eight, so visitors only have ~12.5% chance of seeing it. I was fortunate to live there and see it many times.
This is a photo of a day tour boat in Resurrection Bay, Seward, Alaska
A favorite gift from the last twelve years is the purple pencil sharpener shown at the top of this image. It may have only cost a dollar or two, but one of my sisters and her daughters gave it to me when I saw them right before I moved to Alaska, and it’s been with me ever since. I especially like it at times like this, when I’m editing a new book.
I found a little ice skating rink in downtown Louisville, Colorado recently. Looks like it would be fun at night. :)
