GetInLine version 2

I'm currently working on GetInLine 2 - a complete rewrite of GetInLine, a record-processing DSL I wrote a couple of years ago.

The DSL is not yet as fluent as I would like, but I'm much happier with the underlying design. I'll also be switching to an Apache license; James Strachan encouraged me to do this for version 1, but I never got round to it.

I'm following the development approach that Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce advocate in their book (and which the three of us expound in our TDD course).

I started with a failing end-to-end test. Then I used mocks and unit tests to help me to pull the required interfaces into existence, filling out the application until the first end-to-end test passed.

The resulting code is much simpler to test and write than v1 was, and I've ended up with a highly pluggable set of components.

I'll post a URL as soon as GIL2 is ready for beta testing; if anyone wants to tale a look before then, let me know.

miniSPA and jMock2

I spent yesterday at miniSPA. It's a selection of popular presentations from last year's SPA conference; we run it to attract new participants and new session leaders.

This year's miniSPA was brilliantly organised by Ivan Moore and Andy Moorley. Ivan is programme chair for SPA2008. Andy runs the conference, organises miniSPA, and generally keeps the whole world turning as it should.

I was at miniSPA in two capacities; as next year's conference chair, and as a presenter from last year. Nat Pryce and I ran a tutorial on Test Driven Development with jMock2, which went really well. We've offered to run it again in November at XPDay7.

I'm about to analyse the feedback and first impressions are very positive. SPA is a remarkable conference. If you haven't been, take a look at the website and think about going next year. If you want to go next year, think about submitting a session proposal.