I recently created a SpecFlow plugin to solve a peculiar problem with NUnit test code generation. The issue is SpecFlow will generate test code that doesn’t compile when the .NET project containing the SpecFlow scenarios has a default namespace with the word NUnit. For example, if your project has the namespace IntegrationTests.NUnit, then you’ll receive the following error when trying to build. The type or namespace name ‘Framework’ does not exist in the namespace ‘IntegrationTests. Read more

I recently finished the famous book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It was first published in 1937 and continues to be a best seller today. The following is a cheat sheet which summarizes the points Carnegie makes in the book. PART ONE: Fundamental Techniques of Handling People Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Give honest and sincere appreciation. Arouse in the other person an eager want. Read more

Selenium is a library used to automate web browsers. It uses a common web driver interface, and each web browser, Chrome, Firefox, IE, has a corresponding implementation that takes advantage of the browser’s native API. I don’t have much experience with browser automation. In fact, I try to avoid it as much as possible in favor of testing at the unit and service level. Tests running through the browser tend to be brittle due to the non-deterministic nature of web pages. Read more

“To every thing there is a season” begins Ecclesiastes 3, and if the phrase’s writer were alive today, he might have had the modern workplace in mind (not really but it makes a good intro). On April 21, I celebrated my 40th birthday, and I’ve been reflecting on the fads and trends I’ve seen during my career. What were they? Why did they become popular? Why did they fade away? And, ultimately, what took their place? Read more

Up until version 2016, Microsoft’s SQL Server didn’t support row-level security (RLS) - a feature that’s been around in Oracle and IBM’s offerings for a while. If you ran SQL Server and needed RLS, you had to build your own scheme which is exactly what I had to do for a recent project. I needed RLS for a new data warehouse I was building using SQL Server 2014. The requirements called for storing sensitive financial and sales data from multiple users in the same tables. Read more

During the run-up to the 2016 election, one word was often used to describe Donald Trump: sociopath. Just Google donald trump sociopath, and you’ll find the results full of articles asking if he really is a sociopath. His former ghostwriter Tony Schwartz thinks so. Amid all the sociopath talk, I realized I didn’t know what the word meant. To me it just described a horrible person. I decided to fix that and read up on sociopathy and its close cousin psychopathy. Read more