cookies and code

I’ve pushed out a couple new features and a bug fix for the flexRpcStubs project. Release 0.3 of the library is available for download on github. In terms of features, you can now filter HTTP calls by HTTP method as well as parameters and HTTP headers. Arguments provided to the result/fault method of HTTPServiceStub and RemoteObjectStub can now be of type literal, Class, Date, RegExp, or Hamcrest matcher rather than just literals and Hamcrest matchers; thanks to Drew for letting me steal the idea from Mockolate, my new favorite mock object framework for AS3. I also fixed a bug in RemoteObjectStub which was not dispatching events on the RemoteOperationStub; thanks to ropp for the fix.

If anyone has SDK classes they’d like to see stubs for, please let me know. I’ve been sent a draft of a ModuleLoaderStub and have a couple ideas for handling SWFLoader, so keep an eye out for more updates as I find time.

I will be presenting on Flex, Rails, and RubyAMF with Jake Swanner at the September 10th Adogo meeting. What’s great about this meeting this month, is that we’re pairing up with the ORUG and having a joint meeting, so this audience will hopefully be a good mix of Ruby and Flex developers. Jake’s been busting ass on the Rails side of things, so I think the presentation is gonna go great. If you’re in town on that Thursday and feel like taking in some Ruby and Flex love, stop by Devry at Millenia at 7:00 PM, Room 114. We will also be using Connect to broadcast the presentation, so if you’re interested in attending remotely, just let me know and I’ll try to get you a couple URLs for the meeting. I’m sure, as is our usual pre-Adogo tradition, we will be meeting at BJ’s Brewhouse for beers around 6:00 PM. Hope you can make it out.

Today the 2nd beta release of FlexUnit4 was published. This release comes with a large list of bug fixes and improvements. This past weekend I burned the midnight oil with Mike and we buttoned up the FlexUnit4AntTasks project and I threw together a new sample project for FlexUnit4 showing how to integrate with Ant and Maven (via the Flex-Mojos plugin). Currently xvfb support isn’t available but we hope to add it in the next beta along with a few bug fixes and refactorings that we have time to finish. If you’re running your CI server on Windows using the Local System account, you should be able to take advantage of the new FlexUnit Ant task; the MacOS X and Linux crowd will have to work with source for now.

If your interested in more details, check out Mike’s latest blog post on the Beta 2 release.

Well I gave my hastely assembled and zero practiced version of a FlexUnit4 and mock-as3 presentation last night at the Adogo and I only caught a few people snoozing, so that is a +1 in my book. Unit testing can be extremely dry for most people, but building tools to make me more productive always holds my interest so that’s how I’ll explain my enthusiasm. Thanks to Drew Bourne and Michael Labriola for the help with the presentation. I blubbered through most of the points on their APIs and definitely mispoke on a few instances, but as long as the recording doesn’t get too much traffic we should be fine. Thanks as well to Russ, Vincent, Brian, and Greg for keeping me company after the meeting over a few beers while I waited for my wife’s flight to get in.

I’ve published the source and recording for anyone who is interested.

I’m going to be presenting at this Monday’s (08/03/2009) August Adogo meeting after a few month hiatus due to the new baby. I’ll be running through the new features in FlexUnit4 and some work I’m doing with Drew on mock-as3. Afterwards, we are going to have a group discussion on “Uses for RIAs” where we’ll try to talk about where RIAs are applicable and how they can be abused. If you’re interested in testing in Flex or developer discussion, come by and see the latest and greatest coming out of the community. We have a sponsor for the meeting, so there will be food.

I hope you can make it out.

Over the last year or so I somehow became the collector of my family’s old computers and parts. Even longer, I have been searching for a tech-related charity that would be able to take advantage of my unused computer equipment, appliances, parts, etc. I had tried donating to local thrift stores, schools, and churchs, but I was really shocked at how difficult it is to donate older generations of technology. Well after 3 years in the Central Florida area I’ve finally found an outlet for those donations in Caring Compy.

Caring Compy is run out of Orlando by Chris Jones and a few other folks that strive to help the community by keeping computers out of the landfills and put them into the hands of those that need them. They work with individuals as well organizations such as the Ronald McDonald House and the Hope For All Learning Center. I recently made a donation to Caring Compy and met Chris and can attest to the fact that he believes in what he’s doing and is dedicated to the cause. They really have a great non-for-profit going that is worthy of support.

Currently, they’re “full up” with donations, but come this August, Caring Compy is going to seeking more help in the form of donations, funding, and workers. While I would encourage you to donate your older computer equipment to Caring Compy, if you can’t wait, Chris was able to suggest a equipment recycling facility in Union Park called Southeastern Data. After watching this story on 60 Minutes on e-waste, I’m glad I finally have charity and recylcing options in the Central Florida area.

If anyone knows of any options locally in Brevard, I’d much prefer donating/recycling locally, so pass them along.

The early bird price (~$35) for registration to FlashCamp Orlando 2009 has been extended until May 15, 2009! Let’s face it, in this economy, every little bit helps. If you weren’t able to make it out to 360|Flex or cf.objective this year, or you can spare a Friday out of the office, come out to support a local developer event sponsored by Adobe and Universal Mind. Lunch, parking, door prizes, great sessions, and lots of great networking opportunities come with the registration price. The best part of it all is at the end of the day, you can drive home instead of staying in a dank motel like you do with most events. Tampa and Melbourne are still what I consider within driving distance, but you may still elect for the motel/hotel.

If you haven’t seen it yet, an interview has been posted with Adogo’s very own Jason Madsen about his session at FlashCamp. Hope you can make it out!

Just a quick note. Last night the Mike did a blog post on the new features coming to FlexUnit and the working title of FlexUnit 4 for the project. You can find the blog post @ http://blogs.digitalprimates.net/codeSlinger/index.cfm/2009/5/3/FlexUnit-4-in-360-seconds. There is a link to the alpha in the post and as soon as it’s available on Adobe’s servers, we’ll publish that URL as well. Keep in mind that it does support legacy FlexUnit and Fluint tests, so dig in and let us know what you think!

A little belated, but registration for FlashCamp Orlando 2009 opened this weekend with early bird expiring on May 1st at $35. Fear not though, the standard registration price is a mere ~$50 which, IMO, is a significantly small fee to attend a one day event.

FlashCamp (formerly FlexCamp) is a one-event day sponsored by Universal Mind and Adobe in which developers and designers can take a deep dive into topics ranging from introductory to advanced from the Flex world. This year Adogo’s very own Maxim Porges and Jason Madsen will be presenting along side Greg Wilson, of Adobe, as well as David Tucker, Andrew Powell, and Christian Saylor, of Universal Mind, and Carl Smith from nGenWorks. The event will take place on May 29th from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. Registration includes free parking, lunch, door prizes and lots of great networking.

If you have the time available, I definitely suggest signing up for a spot, availability is limited. I won’t be able to attend, or speak at, the event since we’ll be welcoming our 1st child into the world this month, but I would definitely be there otherwise. Hope you can make it out!

Mike Labriola today announced on the Fluint Discussion group the big news a few in the Fluint team have been sitting for months now. The Fluint team is leading an OSS initiative to create the next version of the FlexUnit product. What’s great about this initiative (as Mike outlines on the mailing list) is that the new version of Fluint has been designed to mimic a lot of the conventions found in JUnit 4 while still addressing all of the problems Fluint solves for us in the Flex world. I know, for me, this means being more productive when writing tests and finally having better tooling when working with Flex. Here are some of the features listed from Mike’s email:

• Metadata based Test and Suite identification (no more need to extend testcase or testsuite)
• Hamcrest matchers courtesy of the hamcrest-as3 project.
• Theories, DataPoints and Assumptions
• Ignorable tests
• Enhanced Sorting and Filtering
• Custom runner integration

Probably one of the coolest part of this entire framework thus far is that last item. The Fluint team has already been able to successfully run legacy unit tests from the current versions of FlexUnit and Fluint. This means that you can have hybrid suites of tests in the new FlexUnit (e.g. -FlexUnit, Fluint, FUnit, asunit, etc) making migration between frameworks relatively simple.

We’re going to be launching a public alpha release in the near future, but we are still continuing work on Fluint at least as far as release 1.2 (1.1.1 was release yesterday). Please keep in mind however, the goal is for FlexUnit to become what would have been Fluint 2.0. Look for more details in the coming weeks.

Here’s to better testing!