Another bank holiday weekend - another quite week.
Blog Re-development
I've been making some improvements to the basic pipeline for my Docs.Functions.
On build, VSTS is running through unit tests (with coverage being uploaded to VSTS - via OpenCover & OpenCoverToCoberturaConverter) and running an automated acceptance test.
I've written previously about the automated acceptance test. I've extended it a little since last time, but basically it performs the same actions:
- Generates a blog name based on the current date & time
- Checks to see if this blog already exists (it shouldn't). I've added a basic Blog API for the meta data
- Creates a new blog (meta data, blog text & image) and pushes it to red-folder.docs.staging
- I then give it 60 seconds to allow the Docs.Function to perform its tasks (I could probably be more efficient if I add some form of webhook)
- Checks again to see if the blog exists
Assuming all works, then its a good indication all is working well.
Plenty of functionality to go yet - but I wanted to spend some time on both the pipeline and the quality of the code. Already refactored a fair amount of code. Likely to do more as I work through it.
Hopefully have the core of this completed by end of May to allow me to move on to other development.
Azure Functions and optional route parameters
Caught out a little by a bug in Azure Functions this week. Luckily found details of the bug already logged - Optional route parameters throw exception when they are omitted #1216
I found that I had to set a default in function.json:
"route": "Blog/{blogUrl=*}"
Then have some logic within the function to branch based on if "*" was passed in:
if (blogUrl == "*")
{
// Get all the Urls
}
else
{
// Get one Url
}
Not the best of fixes, but will do until the bug is addressed.
Replacement Laptop
Finally ordered my replacement laptop. Had hoped to have prior to the Bank Holiday - but probably best not as the wife would have become a laptop widow.
I've gone for something that should be ridiculously overpowered for what I need. A Dell Inspiron 15 7567.
Its designed as an entry level games machine - so has a massive amount of horse power with a quad i7, 16GB memory & 512GB SSD. This is considerably more that I've traditionally gone for - so hopefully this time I can avoid a lack of resource problems (although I'm already considering throwing another 16GB memory into it).
All in all it seems to come out fairly strongly in reviews - even though it is unlikely to win a beauty pageant.
One of the reasons I went for this (other than the stupid level of power) was the discount available by going through the Dell Outlet UK site. Not only are they selling at a good reduction for refurb units (full supported), they have a fair level of other discounts that apply from time to time. Those discounts vary from 10-30% from what I've seen and will be dependant on the cost of the system from my experience.
It does operate on a first come, first served basis - so a specific device may not be available.
From talking to their chat representatives, it appears that inventory is generally updated 3pm & 8pm (UK time). So if there is a good discount code available, really worth watching for those points if looking for something. (And of course you aren't in a rush).
Hopefully should have mine tomorrow. Really looking forward to having a play with it - its been a long time since I've been excited by a laptop.
Books
Still working through Design Patterns by the Gang of Four. As I suspect before I started to read it, I'm fairly aware of most of the content (so far). The book itself is a little dry, but still worth the effort.
Self promotion
I released ROI of the Planning Horizon last week. It feels an important consideration when looking at the true ROI of a Software project. I plan to back this up with an example this week of how one of my first every Software projects could have evolved over time - and the associated costs.