NUnit + Extension Methods + NBehave.Spec.NUnit = Smile

I used a tiny bit of NBehave today and it made me smile. I used the extension methods in NBehave.Spec.NUnit so my NUnit tests can be a little more Englishy.
Instead of

Assert.IsTrue(sum.Equals(13));

I can write

sum.ShouldEqual(13);

which just gives me a warm, almost Rubyisque feeling, deep inside.

Windows is like that

Right before our last scheduled upgrade, one of the staging servers in the UK started acting badly. It was confused between the US date format, MM/DD/YYYY and the UK format, DD/MM/YYYY. All during testing on both sides of the Atlantic everything was fine. The server's identical twin in the farm had no such confusion. We double checked the windows regional settings, the config files, the C# code, and found no problems.
Out of desperation we restarted the web server, IIS. The sun broke through the clouds, birds were singing, and all was right with the world. The box was no longer confused about transatlantic dates. We did nothing but restart IIS. It was very scary.
After additional testing we did the upgrade and everything is fine. Which reminds me of a Haiku:

Yesterday it worked. 
Today it is not working. 
Windows is like that. 

Austin .Net User's Group Meeting

Matt Hinze presented a good introduction to "Practical Dependency Injection" to about 100 people at the Austin .Net Users group.

Two important announcements:
1. Headspring Systems will give a free class on the new Model View Controller on Thursday Feb 19th from 1-4:30.
2. Austin Code Camp is Saturday May 30th.
Lots of pizza consumed:

Great Video on Finding our Energy Future

I was very impressed with the enthusiasm of Bill Gross about energy and his careful research to design something for our future. Maybe he could start work on our 404 flying cars?

Which Foreign Countries Own the US Debt?

After a dinner conversation, I was interested to know exactly which countries own the US foreign debt. I went the the treasury's website and created the above chart. China is now the largest [foreign] owner of US debt with 682 billion, followed closely by Japan with 577 and the United Kingdom good for 360 billion. Interesting that Japan owns almost as much as China, but we hear so little about Japan.
The total US Debt in November of 2008 was about 10.6 Trillion, so the foreign ownership is 28%. Is this a good thing?

Fun things to do with Google - Track UPS Packages

A little known feature of Google is that you can enter a tracking number for UPS packages and it will take you to the UPS site and show the package status. Google recognizes many forms of tracking numbers and tries to do the right thing.

Agile Boot Camp with Headspring Systems

Last week I attended Headsprings' Agile Boot Camp class taught by Matt Hinze.
Before the class I'd hear "Blah, Blah, Blah, Dependency Injection, Blah, Blah, Blah, Program to Abstractions, Blah, Blah, Blah, RhinoMocks, Blah, Blah, Blah, StructureMap, Blah, Blah, Blah, Inversion of Control. I had a vague idea of the concepts, but not how they fit together.


I struggled through the beginning of the course and then in the afternoon of the third day, the clouds parted, music swelled, and the pure sunshine of agile testing shone through and slapped my face.

I'll post another entry to give an overview of the concepts that struck me most. The labs were the perfect length, not too long as to be too time consuming, but technical enough to show the concept succinctly. I highly recommend the course if you are interested in bringing your skills to the next level.