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I’ve said before that I am bored of television. Bored with YouTube. Bored with the internet. So I am trying to read. There’s the stack of books on my nightstand (and on shelves, and even on the floor) that I have not read. I’m trying to get to a few of those.

Currently, I am reading both Developer Testing and Working Effectively with Legacy Code. Both are very good reads and contain important points to think about while programming. Previously, I had only skimmed portions of the books. I’m trying to be more thorough now with the infinite time on my hands.

In the former, the book describes the roles of testing code from a programmer’s perspective. What to test, how to test, why test are topics covered. I’m reading it, because at work, I am running into the absurdity of failing tests indicating the product isn’t working where the failure is cosmetic in nature. It is perfection as the enemy of the good. I understand their point, but it is a hole we dug for ourselves because of a non-iterative approach.

In the latter, the book describes how to approach legacy code and systems when dealing with changes. It really sharpens the idea that all code is legacy code even the code you wrote five minutes ago. You have to be aware that it will change, and you have to make it ready to be changed. If not, legacy code gets rough. I’m reading it because of the code we’ve got is legacy and needs changing. Unfortunately, we changed it via throwing the baby out with the bath water and started from fresh. Jesus is that a mess.

Finally, I think I glanced at a few chapters in Clean Architecture. It’s really next on the list. I’m finding it useful as I approach my work. Our architecture isn’t clean, it’s dirty like a Big Ball of Mud.

Weird to write about software development at a time like this. Weird that I am reading books about it. Weird that I’ll tag it with the rona tag. It is just a weird time.