Monthly Archives: January 2011

Bootstrapping The .NET Framework Without An MSI Installer

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Derick Bailey

I recently needed to test the idea of whether or not I could bootstrap .NET v4.0 onto a WinXP machine, from a USB thumb drive, without an application installer for the target app. The goal was to insert a thumb … Continue reading →

Posted in .NET, Bootstrap, Command Line | 4 Comments

Asynchronous Control Updates In C#/.NET/WinForms

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Derick Bailey

Every .NET WinForms project I’ve written, since .NET 2.0, has included some form of this code: public static class ControlExtensions {   public static void Do<TControl>(this TControl control, Action<TControl> action)     where TControl: Control   {     if (control.InvokeRequired)       control.Invoke(action, … Continue reading →

Posted in .NET, Async, C#, WinForms | 3 Comments

Responding To Growl Notification Clicks With MacRuby

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Derick Bailey

In my last post, I detailed the process of setting up a MacRuby app to send Growl notifications. To get even more mileage out of Growl, though, it’s a good idea to response to various interactions with the notifications that … Continue reading →

Posted in Growl, MacRuby, OSX, Ruby, Xcode | 1 Comment

Creating Growl Notifications From A MacRuby App

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Derick Bailey

I’ve been wanting an excuse to learn how to code for OSX for a while now, and I finally thought of a project worth trying. In an effort to get up and running on XCode and Cocoa as quickly as … Continue reading →

Posted in Growl, MacRuby, OSX, Ruby, Xcode | 3 Comments

I Use Inheritance And I’m Not Entirely Ashamed Of It. Should I Be?

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Derick Bailey

Some time ago I saw a video of Dave Thomas at the Scotland On Rails 2009 event. In this video he says something along the line of “Inheritance is the work of the devil. You should not be using it, … Continue reading →

Posted in AntiPatterns, Principles and Patterns, Ruby | 15 Comments

Mocks, Stubs and Unreadable Tests: Clearly I’m Doing This Wrong

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Derick Bailey

I tweeted this a few minutes ago: This is in reference to a horrible test that I wrote today. It’s got 2 assertions and more than 20 lines of context to set up the mocks that I needed, to isolate … Continue reading →

Posted in AntiPatterns, Principles and Patterns, Quality, RSpec, Test Automation, Testing, Unit Testing | 19 Comments