Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Wednesday January 17, 2007

[ Code ] TDD

The cost savings and efficiencies of Test-Driven Development (TDD) should be clear not just to any hardware engineer but also to software and other engineers, system designers and developers. In fact, even when we imagine we are developing without a test, we implicitly have some kind of test in mind: We build systems in order to elicit specific responses to specific stimuli (tests?) upon those systems. Most software developers know how a good test can drive their work, particularly when the system is complex with multitude of constraints and also when there are volumes of existing tests to detect regressions.

Peter Marklunds describes TDD with Ruby in some detail.

2007-01-17 23:00:34.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
development ruby software tdd testing

[ Culture ] 800 Years Later at Stanford, 1400 Years Later in San Jose

A colleague sent me a reminder that Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–73)'s 800th birthday celebration at Stanford University will be held on Saturday January 27^th, 2007. Mahmoud Zolfonoun will perform some muscial pieces, several Mawlana scholars will hold a panel discussion, and Robert Bly will be reading some translations of Mawlana.

To some readers, I've promised my first podcast will be a reading of the first few verses from Mawlana's Masnavi in the original Persian, followed by my own rough English translations. (Note that I'm by no means a Masnavi scholar. So, my reading and translation will only give you a very rough idea of a very small corner of Mawlana's poetry. Masnavi, by itself, contains thousands of lines of poetry and Divan-e Shams, even more.)

The tickets for the Stanford event, including the catered dinner, are priced at $90 per person.

An English translation of Masnavi can be found here.

That same Saturday also coincides with the day of Ashura, the 10^th day of the lunar month of Muharram, marked by Muslims since some 1400 years ago as a day of commitment to justice.

This year, I hear there may be a local Ashura procession in downtown San Jose. See here for BBC's account of Ashura, and here, for another scholarly account of its 'recent' history. The BBC notes that "Ashura has been a day of fasting for Sunni Muslims since the days of the early Muslim community. It marks two historical events: the day Nuh (Noah) left the Ark, and the day that Musa (Moses) was saved from the Egyptians by Allah. Shi'a Muslims in particular use the day to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet (pbuh), in 680 CE."

2007-01-17 22:24:25.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
persian poetry rumi stanford

[ Telecommunications ] SMS Record in Iran

Tonight's JJTVN reported that celebratory SMS notes sent for Eid Ghadir Khumm on January 7 resulted in the biggest SMS revenue day ever for the Iranian mobile telecommunications industry.

2007-01-17 22:13:35.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
iran khumm mobile sms telecommunications

[ Art (هنر) ] Box Office Hit in Persian

The Persian (Iranian) box office hit of last year was Tahmineh Milani's Cease Fire.