Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Should We Test Getters and Setters?

When new engineers are being brought into the fold of unit testing, one question invariably arises: “Should we test getters and setters?” The answer, in the humble opinion of this engineer, is yes.  This is by no means a new argument; it has been raging across the software development field for years.  Let’s face it, public getter and setter methods are (normally) inherently simple, and writing unit tests for them seem to be a waste of time – testing the language’s ability to set and pass variables instead of any actual code.  But there are a few dangers lurking in not testing them…

Whenever I advocate testing getters and setters, the first argument I almost always get is, “A simple getter and setter can’t break.” Wrong.  They can break, and I have seen it happen.

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Monday, May 26, 2008

New RIA Benchmark Compares Web Technologies

Recently I have been fascinated by a new breed of benchmarking tools for Rich Internet Applications (also known as RIAs). As developers push more application functionality and interactivity to the browser, the speed and consistency of page rendering has become critical to a successful Web 2.0 app. The new benchmark on the block is GUIMark, a self-described “RIA benchmark.”

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Friday, May 23, 2008

Harsh Reality: Online Content is Rarely Read

A recent Alertbox column from Jakob Nielsen provides new insights into online reading behaviors. A couple of the findings aren’t encouraging for writers.

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Podcast Audience Up, Up, and Not Going Away!

Once again, new evidence has emerged that continues to legitimize podcasting as a formidable means of content and information distribution.  In its third annual report on podcast consumption, the 2008 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet and Multimedia study reveals significant growth in the consumption of audio and video podcasts. eMarketer agrees, predicting podcast audiences will increase 251% in 2012.  That’s less than four years folks.  This is big news considering today’s market where consumers have a vast amount of choices for information and entertainment.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Distracting News: .car

There is Internet access at work, and Internet access at home. And thanks to WiFi, it seems like the Web is now available in an ever-increasing list of locations. However, there is one place many people spend a great deal of time where Web access is severely limited: a person’s vehicle. This is a big deal because according to an Arbitron study a few years ago, the average American spends 14 percent of waking hours in a car (see pdf of Arbitron study here).

Now a company called ATX (news release) would like to change all that by bringing Web access to your car’s dashboard. They are even proposing a new top-level domain (.car) to facilitate that process. Yikes, I see one more huge distraction looming for already distracted drivers.

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