My name is Ben Scheirman.  I am a Principle Consultant with Sogeti, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner.

On this blog you’ll find my random tidbits about software development, revolving around agile practices such as test-driven development, refactoring, continuous integration, domain driven design, and more.  I also frequently cover object-relational mapping concepts with NHibernate.

I enjoy reading, but the only thing that captures my attention are technical books.  My reading list is growing faster than I can possibly read.

I live in Houston with my wife and three beautiful children.  When I’m not working, I’m usually hanging out with my family, playing video games, or playing guitar.

Venkat Subramanium is an amazing speaker.  I was fortunate enough to have him as my professor in college and what I remember most are the interesting analogies that helped explain tough topics.

His latest post, Walking along the developer beach, is another gem that explains the rhythm that you must get in to gain the most productivity out of test-driven development (and test-2nd development).  The most interesting thing is that it works for either school.  Either you write the test first, then the method, or you write the method first, but immediately after you write your test.  It forces you to hold the caller’s perspective and not get buried in the code.  A byproduct is cleaner, more testable code.

If you are writing unit tests, then that’s a huge step that most people aren’t even achieving yet, but to get the most out of them, write them in parallel with your methods.  Otherwise you’ll be hopping along one foot, just like hopskotch.

Now playing: Breaking Benjamin - Wish I May