Thursday, November 23, 2006

A whole new world.. and Launchy!

Well first off I'll start with an update on things. We implemented CruiseControl.Net last Sunday and have been using pair programming for the last few weeks. It’s been a really great learning experience. I had always thought that pair programming wasn’t something that would ever interest me but it turns out I was wrong. I find that I’m much more productive with someone to work problems through and the noise levels in the room don’t affect me at all. We’re also doing a bit of TDD. Well our own version of it, which we update as I get time to read Test Driven Development: By Example. I’m also looking forward to reading the 2nd edition of Extreme Programming Explained. I’ve definitely become an agile convert but now I want to research the various flavors to see what best jives with me. All in all I’m very happy with how life is progressing professionally.

And in other news Jean-Paul released another little tidbit of information that has helped me immensely. It's a product called Launchy and let me tell you this thing is awesome. By default it scans your Start -> Programs and Control Panel for all applications. When you bring it up you type in the name of the program (or just the first letter) and it will show you the most likely match. After a second or two a drop down will appear that shows you the top 10 matches which you can pick from. Once you use an application with it, it will make it more likely to return that application (especially for the same keystrokes) in the future. It’s replaced Slickrun as my application launcher of choice.

No comments: