YaK:: WebLog #535 Topic : 2007-09-14 01.09.50 matt : my book is out! [Changes]   [Calendar]   [Search]   [Index]   [PhotoTags]   
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my book is out!

The book project I worked on for about a year is now available.


The book is Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# 2nd edition . Technically, *our* book would be more accurate since it's an extension of Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas' first edition with some extra sauce from Andy and myself.

As some people know, I've been working with C# and NUnit since July of 2002. I've been working with Mono since February 2003, and used Mono on Linux as the technology platform of choice for the company I founded. We actually paid for mono support through a circuitous Silver-level Novell support program. I started contributing back to mono (and other open source .NET projects) in late 2004 up until late 2006 in the form of testing, patches, and funding. In my time working with C#, I had to understand a great deal about the CLR in the several multi-platform projects I participated in. As such, the book has a great deal more insights into .NET-specific gotchas and references. Besides being down in the guts myself, I have also been coaching and training individuals and teams on unit testing, TDD, and other agile/XP practices for quite some time. The book doesn't offer too much religion on this front, but I have learned so much from 'innocent' questions asked by people when pairing and a lot of that has gone into the book as well.

Now that my primary job has me in Ruby and JavaScript more often than not, I'm glad I was able to get my hard-won, proven techniques into a book that isn't focused just on Microsoft's .NET implementation and tool set. We briefly introduce SharpDevelop , MonoDevelop , TestDriven.NET , as well as Visual Studio. We also try to keep people working with MacOS and Linux commandlines in the loop at various points. Also, the book references the very latest version of NUnit (v2.4), so it isn't outdated as soon as it hit the shelves. (This was a major frustration of mine with some other .NET books.) We cover the new assertion syntax and have updated the code examples in this new style (as well as to C# 2.0).

It took quite some time for the book to come out, mainly due to the release of NUnit 2.4 being pushed back several times. In hindsight, I'm glad we had the extra time to incorporate more feedback and go the extra mile with the content. Special thanks to Geoff , my husband, and Todd Nagengast who printed up the whole beta book and marked it up with red pen from beginning to end. That kind of feedback was invaluable for increasing the cohesiveness from paragraph to paragraph, section to section, chapter to chapter, and Station To Station.

Working on a book is very difficult; after re-reading and re-reading, you start to question everything. From that perspective, it's just like writing/recording songs without a producer. Andy Hunt (and Geoff) were great for telling me when to get on with it and stop obsessing over the phrasing of a single sentence.

Anyways, please buy the book and tell your friends! Specifically, buy it via the Amazon link above so I can make money! ;) I'm interested to hear feedback that I can incorporate into my next book project on a related topic.

PS: Several people have initially approached me as if I am either a Microsoft or Open Source fan boy. A person in our BlackHat class wrote on in the feedback form that I was anti-Microsoft. I'm just not a sycophant, so don't assume that because I have criticisms against a particular technology or product that I must "hate" it and the people that produce it and "love" the competition. Similarly, don't assume that because I have a positive impression of a specific technology that I must "love" the people who produce it and "hate" other technologies.

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