May 9, 2012: The Random Link Post Returns

And now, the return of the semi-occasional link post. I’m going to try to do this at least once a week, but who knows.

If you are writing JavaScript, you should be looking at Justin Searls and his JavaScript testing tools. Justin posted the slides for what looks like a great talk on JavaScript testing. These slides made me happy.

In random media sales, the audio book of World War Z is on sale for a mere six bucks.

A couple of Ruby posts. Steve Klabnik argues that merely splitting code into modules doesn’t reduce complexity. Instead he argues that you need encapsulation. I think splitting code is probably better than nothing, but not a lot better.

Meanwhile, Avdi Grimm describes the Ruby idiom for type conversion which I have to admit, I never thought of as an idiom before.

In a story that I think of as a cautionary tale about pricing and value, the LA Times writes about the history of American Airlines customers who bought unlimited tickets. And then, you know, they used them, unlimitedly.

I always like to see plucky programmers trying to self-publish books about testing. So I’m glad that Aaron Sumner is LeanPubbing a book on testing Rails and RSpec. Good luck, Aaron!

Pretty much everybody who blogs or writes or tries to explain things to people should read this XKCD

Finally, a random music recommendation. I don’t recommend music much, but I do have a weakness for lyric-heavy, earnest, catchy music. Which brings me to the Lisps and their recent musical project Futurity. The musical is a Steampunky kind of thing that concerns a Civil War vet who tries to build a “Steam Brain” with the help of Ada Lovelace. It’s clever and I like it. Album Link. On a similar vein, their song Singluarity from their previous album Are We At The Movies.