James McGivern

Wow its been a very busy few months here at Adaptavist so this is the first chance I've had in a while to blog, but I'd like to let you in on a little tip to ease a couple of common unit testing "problems" when developing JIRA plugins.

The Problems

These problems are not unique to JIRA but a consequence programming styles, hence you should be able to recognise and solve similar other problems whenever you come across them using the method I will describe. But first the problems. …

I've been working on a plugin for JIRA to provide tracking and reporting of various metrics associated with Issues raised under an SLA (Service Level Agreement), during which I've tried to put in to practice many of the things I've learned (e.g from "Clean Code") and preached about myself (TDD). I've tried to be as well behaved as I can and written the tests first in true TDD style, and where I have not I have tried to ensure that appropriate tests are written after the implementation. …

Like any good developer I'm aware there is always more I can do to improve my code, be it style or substance, however I can also not deny that since having been to Devoxx this year my drive to improve both myself as a coder and my code has increased fourfold. In particular Uncle Bob's evangelising talk about professionalism and his book "Clean Code" which he shamelessly plugged and I subsequently bought and have already burned my way through the first half with glee. …