Integrating DbUnit and Grails together

I've been struggling within the Grails world for a while. It's pretty cool stuff, but the story around testing seems a less than desirable for my tastes. For integration tests, I like to have a database loaded with some data, and I don't want to have to load that data via object construction. In the Java world, I would use the excellent DbUnit framework to bulk load/unload data to/from the database. Why should Grails be any different? After some playing around with DbUnit 2.2 and Grails, it isn't any different. Works like a charm for integration testing. I'll still use metaprogramming and mocking techniques for unit testing, but DbUnit allows me to build up simple datasets of the database tables that I can easily load and unload through my Grails integration tests.

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IntelliJ IDEA Android Support plugin out in the wild!

Well, it didn't take too long before an Android plugin became available for IntelliJ IDEA. It's available through the Plugin Manager as Android Support. Works really well for a new release. I've been able to build some simple examples and run them through the Android emulator. I'm really enjoying playing with this Android SDK. It's done very well and it seems that they made the tools easily integrable into existing IDEs (for now Eclipse and IntelliJ).

http://code.google.com/p/idea-android/

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Google's Android SDK rocks!!

Just got my first taste of the Android programming environment. Very, very cool. I have it set up on Linux and I'm using the Android Eclipse plugin with Eclipse 3.3.1. It's really freakin' cool. Much better programming environment than Microsoft's Windows Mobile stuff on .NET (formerly .NET Compact Framework). I've done some things in that world and it seemed OK, but this stuff that Google released is absolutely beautiful. Debugger works pretty well and I've heard that JUnit is included in the Android runtime on the emulator be default. That was always a hang up with Microsoft's stuff--you couldn't write test cases for anything. I really like where this thing is going. This is going to be fun!!

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Brian Goetz's Java Concurrency in Practice

Started reading this book tonight and working through the code examples from his book's website. If the first two chapters are any indication, this is going to be very good book. Very approachable discussion on concurrency, which never seems to be approachable.

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nvidia-settings, the Nvidia configuration UI

If you're using Nvidia's restricted drivers, use nvidia-settings to access their GUI for tweaking everything under the sun on your Nvidia board.

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Pheasant hunting in northeastern South Dakota

Got back from an excellent pheasant hunt yesterday. I shot 7 pheasants over 3 days of hunting (limit is 9 for 3 days of hunting). Two friends (Pete and Kevin) came out from the Twin Cities to partake in the festivities. Very fun, especially on Sunday when it was just the three of us and Kevin's German shorthair pointer and a farm dog helping out for the hunt. We shot our limit of birds in about 2 hours. Weather was pretty good until Monday--Monday was extremely windy and really difficult to hit anything. The birds would fly real high and let the wind get behind them, so there wasn't much time to get a shot off. I'm still having problems ejecting spent shells from my Benelli Nova pump and get a new round into the chamber.

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Finishing up the pergola in the backyard

My neighbor is just finishing up the pergola for our pool area in our backyard.

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The pool is done!

We're finished building the pool. Pergola is still being worked on.

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New Quad Core Linux workstation on the cheap

Built a nice new development Linux box (Kubuntu 7.10) for dirt cheap. I already had the mouse, keyboard, speakers, and LCD monitor. Everything was purchased from NewEgg. Not bad for under $1,000. I probably could have stepped up in the processor, but it's still quite quick at 2.4GHz.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor	$280
GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard	$100
XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card	$130
Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU ATX 12V 2.0 500W Power Supply	$50
NZXT HUSH Black SECC Steel/ Aluminum/ Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case	$90
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Memory	$170
SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner	$30
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive	$110
TOTAL	$960

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