July 31, 2010 by mensming.

For some time, I wanted to send out a Subversion change log from Hudson after a successful build showing all of the changes since the last build. (This is something I think Hudson should support natively - you can see a change log via the UI.) After some research, I came across Using Groovy with Hudson to send rich text email posted by "Chetan".

This solution works like a champ and is recommended. Two points - 1) if you are using Subversion, see the comments for the email template code for displaying the subversion log in the email - the main template code is not for Subversion; 2) I had to change ${fileEntry.editType} which displayed an object reference to ${fileEntry.editType.name} to display whether the file was edited, added or deleted.

Posted in source code control, build | No Comments »

July 25, 2010 by mensming.

The following links were published in the March 2010 ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes in the "Surfing the Net for Software Engineering Notes" by Mark Doernhoefer. This issues topic was Cyber Security.

• SANS Institute
• US-CERT
• CERT
• Build Security In
• Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Computer Security Resource Center
• National Vulnerability Database
• Common Criteria
• NSA Security Configuration Guides
• Stay Safe Online
• Top 100 Network Security Tools
• European Network and Information Security Agency

Posted in security | No Comments »

July 17, 2010 by mensming.

A coworker pointed me to the following video: Quality Software Development by Yahoo Architect Douglas Crockford (181 MB). The presentation from from the Yahoo 2007 FrontEnd Engineering Summit (March 7-8, 2007).

Below are my notes of the slide titles.

• The Software Crisis
• Craft vs Engineering
• Computer Science has not taught us how to manage software projects
• Software Construction (Good and Bad Analogy)
  
• Nature of Software
• Programming is Difficult
• Lack of Metrics
• Lines of Code - not good
• Programmers are optimists
• Programmers do not understand how they spend their time
• Actual time typing is pretty small
  
• Skeptical of anything that requires more keystrokes
• Programming is a social activity
• Cost of Innovation
• Legacy
• Leaps (of productivity? software capability?)
• Object Oriented Programming (History)
• Failed Leaps
• Software does not have enough self awareness to be afraid of bugs
• Bugs
• Snake Oil / Silver Bullets
• Mythical Man Month (1975)
• Literate Programming (Knuth)
• Significant difference in individual ability
• Surgical Team (Harlan Mills)
• Incrementalism
• Beta (Perpetually Unfinished)
• Application triad (skill, technology, requirements)
• Feature Cost
• Code Value
• Code Quality (Micro and Macro View)
• Simplest thing to enhance value of codebase - make more readable
• Yahoo Javascript coding convention
• Programs are a medium of intentional communications
• Good architecture - necessary structure to keep from collapsing
• How do we change a correct program into another correct program?
• Cruft - “Software Scar Tissue”
• Causes of Cruft
• Bloat - “Software Cancer”
• Insecurity
• Cruft accumulates -> complexity groups -> progress slows
• Refactoring
• Sometimes it is best to start over
• The pain of the crash
• The illusion of completion
• An experienced team can cross that ground again very quickly
• Conclusion

Posted in software engineering, process improvement, security, project management, requirements | No Comments »

July 3, 2010 by mensming.

RT @rodica: "at their core, phone companies are really billing engines. occasionally completing calls is only a favor they do for you."
5:49 PM Jun 29, 2010

Wanted: Young cyberexperts to defend Internet - http://bit.ly/bexXyg
7:15 AM Jun 29, 2010

Why Can’t Johnny Develop Secure Software?- http://bit.ly/cWXYnC
8:28 AM Jun 28, 2010

RT @scottwambler: The best devs have maintained someone else’s code and worked in ops. These are the ppl who understnd the impact of coding.
6:01 PM Jun 25, 2010

LinkedIn communications at center of unprecedented lawsuit - http://bit.ly/bnGpp0
6:26 AM Jun 24, 2010

Where are all the science majors? - http://bit.ly/bfKoXa
8:03 AM Jun 22, 2010

10 R&D Cybersecurity Initiatives Congress Seeks - http://bit.ly/a7wqy9
9:50 AM Jun 21, 2010

Data Show Increase in First-Time Science and Engineering Graduate Students - http://bit.ly/9GBV3Q
1:13 PM Jun 15, 2010

Data Show Increase in First-Time Science and Engineering Graduate Students - http://bit.ly/9GBV3Q
1:13 PM Jun 15, 2010

RT @conenza: All I Needed To Know About Social Media I Learned In Kindergarten: 15 Social Media Tips http://tinyurl.com/244b3jd
1:11 PM Jun 10, 2010

RT @johnhcook: New Capitol Hill bookstore caters to Seattle geeks. http://bit.ly/dlQlIt
6:02 PM Jun 11, 2010

RT @AutomatedTester: [Blog] Selenium StackExchange Proposal - http://bit.ly/atbyRI #Selenium
6:52 AM Jun 11, 2010

RT @yurechko: LimeWire owes $1B, but BP is only on the hook for $69M. Music sharing is 14.5x more damaging than a catastrophic oil spill.
5:17 AM Jun 9, 2010

A Selenium CaptureNetworkTraffic Example in Java - http://bit.ly/9hrWIG #selenium
7:12 AM Jun 3, 2010

NASA Fixes Bug On Voyager 2 - http://bit.ly/brNTZl
8:13 AM Jun 2, 2010

My old company SiteScout bought by Rubicon Project - http://bit.ly/9EdRyu
9:19 AM Jun 1, 2010

Posted in twitter | No Comments »