Test Data

I’ve always been a big proponent of using the best test data possible. As a developer, I find that it’s very easy to get lost in the details of implementation, and tend to leave the generation of test data till a later stage of a project.

The problem I find is that by leaving the generation of test data till the end, more often than not, I end up only testing edge cases (which is extremely important), but I tend to not spend enough time generating large quantities of normal data. A result of this is that it’s easy to miss performance problems.

So, as of today, I’m making sure I have sufficient amounts of test data up front. Best of all, I’m focusing on automated data population from various sources. One of my favourite sources for this is Wikipedia. For any large body of text, I find just grabbing a random article is perfect.

Annual Noise Cleanout

Well, it’s that time again, yep, I’m cleaning out my list of blogs, twitter friends and every other bit of noise that I find is just not providing any use.

Unfortunately, while examining what I’m currently subscribed too, I noticed something that was a little disturbing. Once, a long time ago, I had most of the MS Oz PDE team in my feed, as of today, I’m down too one.

I used too find the information coming out of this group extremely useful. In particular, Information about Dev tools, events and new technologies. I’ve found over time, these blogs have reduced to general noise about peoples lives, or have just plain gone quiet. They no longer serve the purpose I had subscribed to them for.

This isn’t the only group I’ve cleared out, but it’s certainly one of the most disappointing ones. On the bright side, over the last year, I have picked up a number of feeds from overseas that have replaced the ones I’m now removing.

Ed.