sebastiandaschner news

Hi and welcome to another newsletter!

I hope you’re doing well where you are. These weeks continue to be rather quiet and focused on work for me, due to the ongoing craziness in the world. My heart goes out to everyone in Germany who suffered the consequences of the floods. I think that reminds us to be grateful for what we have while we have a chance to do so.

With regards to technology and using the time in lockdowns and uncertainty as best as possible, I’ve started to take better notes of all the small and big things I’m learning every day. It’s tempting to think that one is not advancing and a lot of days feels the same, but when we’re reminded of the progress we’re making (in whatever area), we feel much better about the time. Just in 2021, I’ve learned tons of new stuff on Java, Quarkus, Selenide, Linux, VIM, IntelliJ, Neo4J, and database technologies, and seeing this is a great motivation to keep it going.

What’s new

Quarkus workshops next week

There are still places left for the two full-day online workshops on how to do modern, effective development with Quarkus. These workshops aim to boost one’s knowledge, skills, and productivity for developing and testing modern enterprise applications.

We already have the minimum number of participants, so they are guaranteed to take place. We will have a full day of interesting Quarkus content, from 9am - 5pm CEST. The workshop is done via Zoom and attendees can turn on their microphone and camera for questions, if desired.

If you want to boost your knowledge on all things Quarkus in general, and/or effective testing in particular join us!

Workshop pages:

In case you’d like to join for both days, you can book the workshop package for both days and save some money.

I’m already looking forward!

IntelliJ IdeaVim support for NERDTree

Since I’m a big fan of IntelliJ and the VIM way of tying, I use the IdeaVim plugin a lot. For a while, IdeaVim has now support for NERDTree, that allows us to navigate the project files with the same VIM key bindings, without switching to the arrow keys.

That means, with NERDTree activated, you don’t conduct a search when typing a character anymore, but you can use your J/K and H/L to navigate in the tree.

You activate NERDTree in your ~/.ideavimrc file as follows:

The last two lines activate H/L to navigate in the hierarchies. Check out the wiki page for more information.

If you’re into IntelliJ and VIM, also watch my video on my favorite IdeaVim features.

Something fun: A poem on testing

In order to summarizes the key points of my content on effective testing, I’ve written…​ a poem ;-)

Tests that spark flow

Are you struggling with tests are they unwieldy and slow?
Do you fear code changes and you just can’t stay in the flow?

You need to be flexible and efficient, your tests need too,
to adapt to a fast moving world, where quality is not an issue.

And to deploy to production, the place where we’re supposed to be,
verify the app’s behavior as well as the integration, you see?

What you need is fast test feedback and you’ll be fine.
Plain JUnit is quick, runs hundreds of cases in no time.

Don’t fall for seductive test frameworks, rather care,
that your test code quality is right there.

Build up abstractions, reusable components, go delegate,
otherwise an unmanageable test code will be your fate.

Separate those life cycles, of tests and test environment,
it gives you a short turnaround as you develop locally, my friend.

With that, enterprise testing can be a joy, there’s no need to cry.
Now, close social media, improve your tests, and thank you, goodbye!

Watch it on YouTube.

Thanks a lot for reading and see you next time!