unit_testing

You're right.

People with dwarfism are disproportionally not software developers, too, but it's not trendy to care about them, so DevBootCamp doesn't care.

Transgender people are disproportionally not software developers, but it's not trendy to care about them, so DevBootCamp doesn't care.

White males born into poverty are disproportionally not software developers, but it's not trendy to care about them, so DevBootCamp doesn't care.

Hey, DevBootCamp: What makes an affluent latina more important to you than an impoverished white male? What makes an affluent white woman more important to you than an impoverished Indian with dwarfism?

Your organization is toxic. Go away.

Thanks for pointing that out! This really is impressive.

I can't reply to your comment, so I'll comment here.

Let's think about some poor, uneducated white kids living in a trailer park without an internet connection. What should they feel when they hear of programs like this? "I'm not important enough to help, because people who look like me already have good jobs?" How should they feel about the myriad of programs and scholarships which explicitly exclude them?

At this point, being black isn't a disadvantage in-and-of-itself. Being poor is a disadvantage, and blacks are more likely to be born poor due in no small part to slavery. But all things being equal, being a poor white person is more difficult than being a poor black person.

And they shouldn't be excluded.

Why not NonCodersCode?

There are plenty of poor, uneducated white girls and boys who could benefit from programs like this.

Oh, what's that you say? We already have enough people with their skin color in the computer science field? Shame on me! You're right -- ignore the white trash.

The (attractive, affluent, privileged) whites who enjoy ignoring white trash are right -- poor, uneducated whites are unimportant. In fact, poor, uneducated whites (especially the toothless ones) are less important and less worthy of help than attractive, affluent, privileged people with more melanin.

Are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than wealthy, affluent blacks?

If you believe so, you're a bigot.

Also, are poor, uneducated whites less worthy of help than poor, uneducated blacks?

Why add the "white" qualifier?

Think about it: By many measures, all things being equal, it's actually (institutionally!) easier to be a non-white (non-Asian) male.

The all things being equal qualifier is extremely important, of course—being born white is correlated with being born middle-class with loving parents. But it in-and-of-itself, it does not make things easier.

If you are born black, it's less likely that you will be born middle class, and it's far less likely that you will have loving parents. But that's issue we need to focus on.

Being born white does not make your life easier. Being born middle-class with loving parents does. Love your kids—don't teach them to hate themselves (and their peers) if they're white.

Tell this to an unattractive, poor white male[1] who watches enviously as an attractive, middle-class black male is given a subsidized college education.

"Your life is easier because you're white. Feel guilty. Feel sheepish about any of your accomplishments, because they were made easier due to your lack of melanin."

Perhaps this white male – with his lack of melanin – has sun-damaged skin with several large, prominent moles, all of which contribute to his lower self-esteem.

"Your life is easier because you're white. Feel guilty. Feel sheepish about any of your accomplishments, because they were made easier due to your lack of melanin."

People in the past with his same skin color have done bad things, so belittle at him when he complains that it's acceptable and politically correct to be bigoted toward pale people. Call him backwards for feeling resentful and bitter. Remember, you are better than him—his life is easy.

Some people feel powerful and superior when they bash their perceived peers. John Scalzi is one of those people.

[1]: Excuse me—I meant "white trash".

Congrats on the release!

I'd love to take this opportunity to dive into Node, but I have yet to stumble accross an effective way of organizing medium to large Node projects. What tools do you guys/gals use?

I'd love to take this opportunity to dive into Emacs, but the past few times I've tried, it's felt like my keyboard was fighting against me. For those of you using Emacs on a Macbook (or an Apple keyboard), which key do you use for 'alt'?

I had the very same thought.

This mentality is fine if you don't want to (or have to) maintain and support anything—and from looking around the author's site, it appears he makes dozens of small things and then leaves them to rot.

What's the purpose of complex testing frameworks like this? What's wrong with using a simple framework whose tests must simply return a bool?

For example:

         var myObject = new Something("foo", "bar");	 
	
	 assert("simple operations", function() {
		return myObject.doSomething() == "baz";
	 });;
	 
	 assert("post-operational state", function() {
		return myObject.state() == 123;
	 });;
	 
	 assertAync("async polling", function() {
		return myObject.poll().length > 0;
	 });;

Is the purpose of heavy testing frameworks purely for the useful functions like "deepEquals"? If so, why not make a library with functions like "deepEquals" and use that library with a simple testing framework? Surely, there must be something I'm missing.

Edit: I should note that the beautifully written CoffeeScript compiler/translator doesn't use a testing framework (favoring a few simple hand-rolled functions), and it has a massive suite of tests.