SimpleTest and 80's driving music
It's always kinda sad, the moment you realize your music tastes have largely stopped evolving. I think I read a study on that once, although for the life of me I can't seem to find it.
Anyhow, what I've noticed, is that I definitely prefer (or at least get more excited about) early/mid 90's music. It's just that familiarity I suppose, and remembering the good / bad / silly times those specific tunes bring about.
There is one notable exception. When I'm driving, I get a real kick out of 80's power tunes. And really, I hate 80's music. In normal, everyday life, I scoff at it with the sort of elitist zeal typically associated with (insert your favourite example of elitism here).
But when I'm driving, it's a whole other ball game. Van Halen comes on the radio and I'm pounding on my steering wheel with each delicious power chord. As you can imagine, it's led to many an embarrassing situation at more than a few stop lights around the city.
Anyhow, that really was a terrible lead in to my main topic of concern, that being Unit Testing in PHP. I won't even try to gracefully segue into it.
As I get back into web development, I'm very happy to see one of my favourite PHP tools, Simple Test is still being developed.
I have a lot of respect for Marcus Baker, who is the lead developer of the software. Back in the days of trolling Site Point's "Advanced PHP Design" forums, which I believe has since been renamed to something less ambiguous, he was extremely helpful and insightful on topics such as Unit Testing and PHP Design Patterns.
Test Driven Development is nothing new to most programmers, but for those who started out (or focus almost exclusively) on web development, it may definitely be a new idea. For me, it's been an invaluable addition to my coding. There's a certain satisfaction watching all the tests light up green, and each red error typically represents an obscure bug down the line which won't haunt you days before the ship date.
If you're not familiar with the concept, I definitely recommend you take a closer look at it.
Some quick links, in case you were too lazy to click on the link above and explore yourself:
