Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Sat, 21 Feb 2004

Tacit knowledge

I've posted my January editorial from Better Software magazine. It's about tacit knowledge, and it commits to the web the "bright and dull cows" story that I've told to countless generations of software people.

## Posted at 12:47 in category /misc [permalink] [top]

Children were created by viruses to make replication easier

Actually, this posting has nothing to do with that, but think about it. Why contend with adult immune systems when you can use immature ones? I imagine two viruses brainstorming a billion years ago, when one of them says, "Sexual reproduction!" And the other says, "Yes! And while we replicate within the hosts that have incompetent immune systems, the other hosts will nurture the cells we're using! Boris, you are brilliant!"

That interlude brought to you by Sophie "Why?" Marick. And, soon, no doubt, her brother.

Now that Dawn's home, I should be doing the things I should be doing. But I need a break, so I read some blogs. Here are two nice pieces from Dave Thomas. Both contain coolly idiomatic Ruby.

• On code generators. (Via Jon Udell.)
• Lazy typing - "first type in wins".

P.S. The disciplinary agency piece is coming along, but the walking-through-refactoring example is 17 pages of test tables and code and pictures and text. This seems a problem.

And the Powerbook mysteriously stopped ticking three days after I whined about it. Magic.

## Posted at 10:12 in category /links [permalink] [top]