May 09 2011
Just a little tip to improve an iPhone UX.
If you need to set a transparent background to a UIWebView, setting a clearColor as backgroundColor isn’t enough: you should set it as non opaque too:
self.myWebView.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[self.myWebView setOpaque:NO];
Very easy when you know it!
Apr 18 2011
Very often I need to unit test something read from a file, but it seems very difficult to accomplish this simple task in iOS, so usually I give up.
But today I felt was a good day to find a solution 
In my code I want to read a JSon data from a file, so I wrote a simple test:
describe(@"Conference", ^{
it(@"loads given a filename", ^{
Conference *conference = [[Conference alloc]initWithFile:@"talks_with_three_tracks"];
[[theValue([conference hasData]) should] beTrue];
});
});
with a simple init method:
-(id)initWithFile:(NSString *)filename{
if ((self = [super init])) {
NSString* path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:filename ofType:@"json"];
NSError *error;
NSString* talksString = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:path encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:&error];
talks = [talksString JSONValue];
}
return self;
}
-(BOOL)hasData{
return talks!=nil;
}
Unfortunately it doesn’t work 
, because path is nil;
But here it isthe solution:
instead of using [NSBundle mainBundle], we should use the bundle associated with our class:
NSString *path = [[NSBundle bundleForClass:[Conference class]] pathForResource:filename ofType:@"json"];
Simple and neat: thank you StackOverflow
Jan 05 2011
In Ruby 1.8.7 it wasn’t possible define a local variable to a block, so the following code produces an exception:
class Shape
def initialize(args)
@sides = args[:sides]
end
def draw
puts "Drawing #{@sides} sides"
end
end
square = Shape.new(sides: 4)
sum = 0
(1..3).each do |value|
square = value * value
sum += square
end
puts sum
square.draw
Ruby 1.9.2 it’s possible add a local variable to a block:
class Shape
def initialize(args)
@sides = args[:sides]
end
def draw
puts "Drawing #{@sides} sides"
end
end
square = Shape.new(sides: 4)
sum = 0
(1..3).each do |value; square|
square = value * value
sum += square
end
puts sum
square.draw
Now it works as expected
Jan 02 2011
Introduced in 1.9, it’s a cool method to know if a directory exists:
Dir.exist?("/tmp") # => true
Dir.exist?("/temp") # => false
A more correct alias is Dir.exist?.
Jan 01 2011
Ilya Grigorik is an awesome programmer who recently launched the geek equivalent of Farmville: VimGolf, the idea that every geek had, but nobody created.
From today he starts to tweet a piece of Ruby every day, mainly 1.9.2.
The first tweet is about Enumeration.reduce, an alternative, and more speaking, name for Enumeration.inject:
ruby-1.9.2-p136 > (1..3).reduce(:+)
=> 6
The strange argument is the symbol for plus, the operation to do to each element.
A more verbose, and less magic, version is:
ruby-1.9.2-p136 > (1..3).reduce {|sum, e| sum+e}
=> 6
Jul 09 2010
Currently, Ad Hoc distribution is the only way to share an application to try itin to several devices or users (to maximum of 100 devices).
Despite the Apple’s reputation to create simple and effective things, the Ad Hoc Distribution is one of awkward and cumbersome process I’ve ever seen: I admit every time I need to change a certificate to add or remove certain devices or I’ve to check another application, I hold my breath and start cold sweat until the end of process… but, in Xcode 3.2 they simplified it a little bit.
In Build menu you can find a new entry, Build and Archive, that creates your application and archive it, allowing to share and signing it in a more confortable way:
All archived applications are in a new window of the Organizer:
When you “share” an application an ipa file is created and you can share it with your betatesters:
Just a little thing, but it’s useful to manage all versions.
More information can be found in this interesting post by Jeff LaMarche: if are serious about iPhone development you must subscribe his blog (and buy his book too )
May 10 2010
Here are the slides from my presentation I gave at Better Software 2010: a humble attempt to spread the Software Craftsmanship philosophy among developers and managers.
Apr 02 2010
Spring is almost arriving and it’s time for another Xpug Milano meeting in coding dojo format.
This month we practiced with ObjectiveC; I gave an introductory presentation about the language, the ide and the framework, then we faced up to a nice Kata I proposed, inspired by some work of Brett Schuchert: the KataRpnCalculator.
I admit I’m amazingly surprised by how quick the Xpuggers learned the basic of the language and how good is the code they produced: awesome!
It’s the proof that it’s always a people problem not a technologic problem, and people with the right attitude can produce very good code, even though they don’t know very well the language.
Mar 01 2010
Better Software is a quite new IT Conference, mainly addressed to non technologic parts of making software.
This year I’ll give a speech about passion, enthusiam and pride to be a developer, and the how that can be used by the companies to make a lot of money . See you there!
