Hurrah .. led two routes and and tope ropped another down at Symonds Yat last Thurday evening:
- Vertigo* - 50ft - Severe - Top ropped. Bit polished. Simple enough top ropped, just move your feet up slowely. Nice and exposed and lovely views of the wye from the top. Perfect evening climb with the sun bright above the woods and room for just the three of us at the top of long stone pinnacle.
- Tea on a Rainy Day* - 45ft - Very Difficult - Led. One interesting move. Lots of pro
- Staircase - 35ft - Very Difficult - Led. Not much pro lower down.
Shoulder ached a little at the end of the evening but nothing too bad. The next morning minor aches else where but shoulder fine
I’m curious about how others are progressing down the path to using patterns and OOD in their programming.
Seems to me that all developers have some knowledge of a whole bunch of patterns even if they don’t actually realise it but I’m interested in understanding how other developers are actively progressing and improving their knowledge of patterns.
Sort of stuff I’m talking about is knowing that the patterns exist and when to use them, also knowledge of the various rules/guidelines on improving your OOD eg from “composition over inheritance” to “inversion of control”.
I’m not saying that I’m upto speed with all of this (yeah right) but I’d be interested to hear anyones opinions on their experiences with these ideas.
Depending on where you work it can take a long time to gain some of the insights required to understand best Patterns/OOD .. and as a freelance contractor I tend not to get to work on long projects - rather I get moved from one project to another in quick succession. I suppose that’s why I’m a bit sensitive with this subject .. I appreciate the opportunities to learn about these ideas when they do come up becuase they can be quite rare.
Bloody ‘ell!
Just when I thought I understand at least some parts of the UK ecomomy along comes a statistic that knocks me socks off: Buy to Let mortgages up 48% last year!
Yowssaah!
Vauxhaul are bringing in a 4 door replacement for the Monaro - the VXR8 Launch date is 2nd July
Wahoo .. the’re also bringing out a super charged version later this year 
Reviews below:
Auo Express Car Reviews: First Drive
Just checkout the sound of this thing, it’s pure evil:
Mmmmm - suit you sir!
I BLOODY WELL WANT ONE OF THESE CARS!
Pictures
Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle ISBN 0-13-067634-9
A very interesting read about how to organise your software development efforts. I guess what you get out of this book and perhaps even what you learn depends on your experiences within software development. Someone who has lived their professional lives within large institutions along with all of their politics, large teams and distributed responsibilities may will see this book as a bit of a shock and an eye opener to how things can be done differently. Whether they’ll be able to actually do anything within their environment to move towards a Scrum approach is anybody’s guess - oh to be a fly on the wall when this comes up for discussion in the management meeting.
However, anyone that has worked in smaller, more (and I hate to say this) agile software environments will read this book and see a number of ideas that they probably already follow or would like to follow. For them, this book gives them:
1. A more formal structure to do the things they already do,
2. Some great ideas on how to improve their team, and
3. Just the strength in knowing that other people have succeeded using these methods and that, in the right circumstances, so can they.
I’ve taken over the maintenance, development and support of a pretty complex .NET web service with no tests .. I’ve written approx. 120 bloody tests for it so far and I reckon those tests cover maybe 20% of the code (haven’t gotten round to check ing the coverage yet).
I’m bored .. but at least I’m moving forward with each test that’s written .. and it’s not as bad as the other web service I’ve taken over that sits a top of a hundred odd VB COM components (now that’s a bloody scary proposition).
Just putting together some links for how to’s for tricks and jumps on a bike:
How to bunny hop
How to bunny hop
How to do some tricks
Big air on a BMX
A General Guide to Training for Climbing by Dave MacLeod (and others)
Interesting and thoughtfull.