Thinking Inside a Bigger Box
Welcome to Johannes Brodwall's blog. I use this space to work on articles mostly about software development, with a focus on Java, SOA, and Agile software development. Many of the articles you will find here are not much more than drafts, and I certainly appreciate input on how to make them better.
If you wonder about the title of this blog, Thinking Outside the Box may answer your questions.
I work as the lead software architect of BBS, the company that handles interbank services in Norway. In my copious free time, I develop software and consult companies in development practices and architecture. For more about the services I can offer, please see my resume.
Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 09:28.
Do you know how to apply coding practices the technology stack that you use on a daily basis? Do you know how the technology stack works? For many programmers, it’s easy enough to use test-driven development with a trivial example, but it can be very hard to know how to apply it to the problems you face every day in your job.
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 12:39.
On larger projects, I’ve always ended up resorting to writing down a lot of detailed specifications, many of which are wrong, irrelevant or we might not be ready to answer them yet. On small projects, the dialogue between the customer and the developers can flow easy, and good things happen.
The quick analysis
Developer: … so we’re going to complete the current task tomorrow or the day after. Could we discuss what to do next before you’re off to your next meeting?
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Sun, 08/07/2011 - 18:35.
Oracle released Java 7 on July 28, 2011. This is nearly 5 years after the release of Java 6 in December 2006. The release received a lot of bad press, both because it is very meager on features, and because it shipped with a severe bug. Nevertheless, once the most serious bugs have been fixed, you might think about starting to use Java 7. What will this mean?
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Fri, 11/05/2010 - 03:00.
The more I code, the more I’ve learned to appreciate keeping the code clean even during complex refactorings. By “clean”, I mean that the code always compiles and the test always run.
I often find myself in a situation where I have a method call that’s starting to accumulate parameters. Something like this:
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Fri, 11/05/2010 - 01:54.
The more I code, the more I’ve learned to appreciate keeping the code clean even during complex refactorings. By “clean”, I mean that the code always compiles and the test always run.
I often find myself in a situation where I have a method call that’s starting to accumulate parameters. Something like this:
Read more ...
Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 09:00.
I though I’d do something different this time. Instead of describing something technical, I have recorded a five minute video that shows a very neat trick in Java: How to create a bit of code that wraps existing method calls to an object with any behavior you may desire.
This is nothing new, but I’ve noticed that not many developers know how to use it, so I hope this video may be useful:
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Tue, 10/26/2010 - 08:22.
I though I’d do something different this time. Instead of describing something technical, I have recorded a five minute video that shows a very neat trick in Java: How to create a bit of code that wraps existing method calls to an object with any behavior you may desire.
This is nothing new, but I’ve noticed that not many developers know how to use it, so I hope this video may be useful:
Read more ...
Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 06:00.
Ctrl-1 is the magic “do what I think” button in Eclipse. Whenever I press it, Eclipse seems to come up with something that’s helpful in the current context. In this blog post, I illustrate 10 things that Eclipse hide under the ctrl-1 keypress. This is a follow up on my post on Eclipse stenography.
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Thu, 10/14/2010 - 05:32.
Ctrl-1 is the magic “do what I think” button in Eclipse. Whenever I press it, Eclipse seems to come up with something that’s helpful in the current context. In this blog post, I illustrate 10 things that Eclipse hide under the ctrl-1 keypress. This is a follow up on my post on Eclipse stenography.
Read more ...
Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Thu, 09/30/2010 - 11:00.
Pair programming and test-driven development are some of the practices that are most often talked about and least often actually understood. So I’ve decided to undertake the task to teach myself to program a simple, yet realistic problem with a pair programming partner. The goal is to create an entertaining and realistic performance that portrays what it feels like to work like this.
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Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Thu, 09/30/2010 - 10:17.
Pair programming and test-driven development are some of the practices that are most often talked about and least often actually understood. So I’ve decided to undertake the task to teach myself to program a simple, yet realistic problem with a pair programming partner. The goal is to create an entertaining and realistic performance that portrays what it feels like to work like this.
Read more ...
Submitted by Johannes Brodwal on Tue, 09/28/2010 - 02:00.
According to Wikipedia, stenography or shorthand is “is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language”.
Just as a stenographer learns to take down information really fast, a good programmer can learn to write code really fast by taking advantage of his or her tools. In this post I’ll show you my secret code stenography tricks.
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