Back In Business
Posted by Davy Brion on February 15th, 2010
Ok, i’m back from my trip to New York. The picture above shows me and the 2 friends that joined me on the trip on top of the Rockefeller building. For those of you who have no idea what i look like (and i’m assuming that’s most of you since i never put a picture of myself on this blog before), i’m the dude on the left (_your left_). The entire trip was simply fantastic… we did so much stuff that we often didn’t remember what we did over 2 days ago without pulling out the digital cameras, but some of the highlights include:
- The statue of liberty… it’s a bit cliche, but seriously, the level of detail on that statue is truly astonishing… the French really did a fantastic job on it (yea i said it
) - Going to a taping of David Letterman’s Late Show… i was sorta hoping in advance that we could get in, but we really didn’t plan on it. We went into the Ed Sullivan’s theater asking for tickets, and luckily we were ‘selected’ (the fact that it was freezing and that this was the tourist low season obviously helped) to attend a taping a few days later.
- Brooklyn Dekker… anybody who knows me in real life knows i have a soft spot for good looking women, but when Brooklyn Dekker (the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover model) got on stage during the taping of the Late Show the entire audience kinda got silent for about 2 seconds.. she really looked that stunning.
- I’v been an NBA fan for the last 16 years or so… i finally got my first chance to see an NBA game in real life. Ok, it was the Kincks vs the Kings (2 of the worst teams right now) but it was still a great experience… and i was actually at Madison Square Garden! (if you don’t know the significance of that, don’t worry… only basketball fans will understand)
- My pancakes with strawberries and ice cream breakfast… yeah seriously, it was that good
- Me asking an NYPD officer holding an M16 politely if i could take a picture of him and answering “oh… ok then” when he said he didn’t want me to take a picture of him
- Walking through Brooklyn during Snowmaggedon looking for Grimaldi’s Pizzeria only to (finally) found it being closed.
Those were the highlights but pretty much every single moment of the trip was memorable and i truly hope that i never forget a single one of them. I took 1125 (according to iPhoto) pictures and they were definitely needed to remember everything that happened in such a short timespan. We went during the low-season and even then, New York is definitely worthy of visiting. The only thing you’ll regret is that you either didnt’ stay long enough, or that you didn’t buy enough clothes (thank you oh horrible Dollar).
Once i got back to my country (Belgium for those that don’t know), i was astonished to see how badly it was handling the less than one inch of snow after what i had just seen in Manhattan. The difference really is huge. I usually avoid politics on this blog as much as possible, but the way our government is handling things compared to how they’re dealt with in New York in much worse weather conditions is truly saddening. Less than an inch of snow and the whole country seems to be at a stand still. And people wonder why i dont go out to vote (that’s right… we are required to show up at elections but i refuse to show up because there really isn’t even a single person who’s worthy of a vote right now).
Anyways, i’m back and i’m working through the backlog of unread posts in Google Reader… there have been a couple of posts so far that might inspire a few posts but other than that, i’m lacking any kind of inspiration to write a real post at the moment so if you have any requests, now is the time to make them 
To wrap up this post: it was great to be gone for a while, but it’s great to be back as well
February 15th, 2010 at 11:04 am
I had no idea you were from Belgium as well
February 15th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Good to hear you had a great time. Btw are you from the dutch or french speaking side of belgium?
February 15th, 2010 at 11:35 am
the dutch side
February 15th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
the Flemish! (by no means we can be considered Dutch at all)
February 15th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
hehehe well at least we (almost) speak the same language
February 15th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Why don’t you vote blank? (blanco in NL)
Good to have you back
February 16th, 2010 at 6:57 am
@alwin
i used to, but then you still actually have to show up :p
February 20th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Being relatively new to the whole TDD thing I would like to see something about more advanced testing, like testing algorithms.. Algorithms usually have some temporary data that “looks a certain way” if while the algorithm is running, but you never see this.
For example, suppose you need to write some form of breadth-first search… How would you go about testing that? I would assume it is not enough to simply check that it finds whatever you are looking for.. You would somehow need to test that the nodes are explored in the correct order?
Another suggestion would be something that describes how you handle exceptions (Here Im talking about some overall exception handling strategies, not just where you place try…catch blocks
) or logging in you application (What do you log? how do you log it? what level of detail should you aim for in the log? etc)..
Anyway, just some suggestions for posts.. Looking forward to your future posts..
February 21st, 2010 at 9:05 pm
“suppose you need to write some form of breadth-first search… How would you go about testing that? I would assume it is not enough to simply check that it finds whatever you are looking for.. You would somehow need to test that the nodes are explored in the correct order?”
that’s a very interesting example, but it’s also a complex one and since i’ve never needed to test such an algorithm, i don’t really have a solution that i can give you for that
i would probably try to stick with state-based testing for something like this (probably in combination with QuickNet instead of classical tests) and avoid any kind of interaction-based testing, despite the order requirement.
the exception handling strategies and logging suggestions have been put on the TODO list
no promises as to when i’ll actually write about those though
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:26 am
I’ve been twice to NY, I love this city! And though it’s not related, I also really enjoy reading your posts.
Btw, I am from the French side of France…