Another very important tool are IDEs (well, there are some that say that real programmers don’t use IDEs, but I’m not one of them, although I really like emacs keybindings). But seriously, a good IDE can make the difference between a good and bad programming experience. For Java development I use the Eclipse IDE, and here is a list of the things that I get from it:

• Autocomplete – Do I really have to remember all the methods of that class? My memory is already full with pictures of funny animals. And it also will also help me fill the parameters if I have appropriate variables available. And it matches a return type if I am assigning a function to a variable. The Juno version of Eclipse includes an event better autocompletion – Code Recommenders, which analyzes your code and recommends you the best method based on the usage pattern detected in your code. Sweet!
• Refactoring – I wrote a post on the subject a while ago. Another thing you don’t need to worry about (you already have enough).
• Source Control – Why do you have to go somewhere else to do source control? You finished editing, check the changes, add the files to the commit, write a comment, commit, and push! And never leaving your IDE.
• Reduction of Learner’s Pain – IDEs make life easier for programmers when they are starting in the language. They don’t have to learn what command compiles, builds, executes, etc. They just click here and here and things work. This DOES NOT mean that they don’t have to learn those details later, but it is better to take things one step at a time.
• Visual Debugger – Have you ever tried debugging an application in a textual debugger? I have, and trust me, it is not fun. It may be a good experience for life, but not something you want to do every time you want to analyze how some code works, or why your program behaves in a completely different way from what you thought.
• Centralization – doing all things in the same platform (when things are done right) saves time and headaches. I write the code, compile it, test it, commit it, check it out, comment it, debug it, and all in one place, with a unified interface.

This is not to say that programmers can’t do great stuff using only vi and the command line. I’m sure they can. But why make life harder? Software is the tool you use to solve a problem, not the problem itself. So use your time and brainpower to solve the problem, and let the tools give you a hand.

This post was inspired by this article on the I Programmer web site. They have a very good newsletter, with hidden pearls now and then. I also found this interesting article on the same topic. The war is still on.

Related posts:

1. Is Software Development an Art?
2. Predicting Software Development Time – New Insights
3. Stop Being Religious About Software Development

Boy was I wrong. Since joining Tweeter this year, it has become my communication hub, specially since Google decided to scrap Google Reader. Instead of subscribing to blogs using RSS, I now follow the writers of the blog, and doing this I also get some extra stuff that are not published in a blog (thoughts that are not long enough for a blog post but short enough for a tweet). This is the story of one of these “extras”.

If you are a software developer, and you haven’t been under a rock for the last 10+ years, you have surely read/heard about Kent Beck, the creator of Extreme Programming. This guy is really popular. A while ago he tweeted one of his thoughts:

once again, trying to do it *and* do it right was too much all at once, resulting in little progress and little learning.

— Kent Beck (@KentBeck) April 15, 2013

Interesting… but what does he think should come first? Do it, or do it right? Well, this is tweeter, no walls anywhere… so I decided to ask him the question:

@kentbeck so what comes first?

— Arieh Bibliowicz (@vainolo) April 16, 2013

To my greatest surprise, he answered (surprise because he is followed by ~45K people, and I’m surely not the only one who replies to his posts):

@vainolo make it run

— Kent Beck (@KentBeck) April 16, 2013

Wow! The world is definitely getting flat.

Edit: @KentBeck posted an extended analysis of this thought in a full blog post. Very interesting reading material.

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So I decided to migrate my blog to Azure. First I tries exporting and importing all the blog’s content as explained in the WordPress Codex but that didn’t work. My export file was too large to import it. OK… so I’ll export it in parts (posts, pages, feedback). That didn’t seem to work either. After trying a number of “automatic” solutions that didn’t work, I hat to get my hands dirty.

So I downloaded the contents of my blog from my previous host (using FTP) and created a backup of the database (which I also downloaded). Then, using the WebMatrix tools provided by Azure, I downloaded my clean Azure blog, and overwrote it the contents of the blog I had downloaded before. Lastly, I had to import the database I had saved earlier into my local MySQL instance (which I did using the MySQL Workbench, a really nice product). So I had a locally working wordpress install on my computer, just by changing small things some basic settings in the wp-config.php and changing some obvious rows in the wp-options table.

From here it was very easy – just hit the “Publish” button in WebMatrix – and Voila! My site was up. Now I had to move my domain – and this was also very easy, following the instructions shown here.

After a couple of days it dawned on me that I also have to move my mail server to a new provider, since I am cancelling my current hosting. Once again I decided to try the MS way, and found this very helpful tutorial. It simply works!

So no more paying for hosting, and I also hope that the response time of my site improves. And thank you Microsoft for all the free services (but the UI of GMail is still better than yours). Sorry for not doing a step-by-step tutorial on how I managed the transfer – I didn’t write it down and not it is impossible to replay all the steps

“We are the Borg … Resistance is futile” -

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Lays out the children a row or a column, wrapping the row/column when no more space is available.

GridLayout (source)

Lays out the children in a grid. The name of this layout is deceiving, because while it sounds like you could instantiate this grid to have a number of rows and columns and then set the figures giving for the figure a specific row and column, what the layout actually allows you to do is set the number of columns (rows) and then the figures are added sequentially to the next column (row) and after all columns (rows) are filled, a new row (column) is created. You can set some information on how each element is laid out, like alignment, spanning more than one column, etc.

XYLayout (source)

This layout gives you full control, by making you decide where you want to put every figure. With control comes responsibility (and more code).

BorderLayout (source)

Lays out the figures in 5 locations: Top, Bottom, Left, Right, and Center. Only one figure can be located in each location. The bounds given to each figure are based on the figure’s preferred size. The central figure get’s the space remaining after all other figures are laid out – it can both grow and shrink depending on how much space is left.

ToolbarLayout (source)

Arranges the figures in one column/row. It tries to insert all child figures into its client area, up to reducing them to their minimum size, but not less than this.

StackLayout (source)

The children of the figure are placed one on top of the other, with the first child added located at the bottom.

DelegatingLayout (source)

This layout expects a Locator to be passed as the child figure’s constraint. At layout time, it delegates to the Locator to perform the layout.

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My site is hosted in a very low-cost hosting service and uses WordPress, with a number of plugins, add-ins, and widgets. For starters, I’m removing all unnecessary items from my site (yes, EVERYTHING) to see how things improve. If you are missing something, please do tell me by leaving a comment. And if you have any ideas that can help make my site faster, do tell me also.

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