Michael Sorens

Michael Sorens is passionate about productivity, process, and quality. Besides working at a variety of companies from Fortune 500 firms to Silicon Valley startups, he enjoys spreading the seeds of good design wherever possible, having written over 100 articles, more than a dozen wallcharts, and posted in excess of 200 answers on StackOverflow. You can also find his open source projects on SourceForge and GitHub (notably SqlDiffFramework, a DB comparison tool for heterogeneous systems including SQL Server, Oracle, and MySql). Like what you have read? Connect with Michael on LinkedIn

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15 July 2014
15 July 2014

A TDD Journey: 1-Trials and Tribulations

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Test-Driven Development (TDD) has a misleading name, because the objective is to design and specify that the system you are developing behaves in the ways that the customer expects, and to prove that it does so for the lifetime of the system. It isn't an intuitive way of coding but by automating the specifications of a system, we end up with tests and documentation as a by-product. Michael Sorens starts an introduction to TDD that is more of a journey in six parts:… Read more
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13 May 2014
13 May 2014

PowerShell One-Liners: Collections, Hashtables, Arrays and Strings

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The way to learn PowerShell is to browse and nibble, rather than to sit down to a formal five-course meal. In his continuing series on Powershell one-liners, Michael Sorens provides Fast Food for busy professionals who want results quickly and aren't too faddy. Part 3 has, as its tasty confections, collections, hashtables, arrays and strings.… Read more
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24 April 2014
24 April 2014

PowerShell One-Liners: Variables, Parameters, Properties, and Objects

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PowerShell isn't a conventional language, though it draws inspiration widely. Many people learn it, and use it, best by collecting snippets, or one-liners, and adapting them for use. Michael Sorens provides the second in a series of collections of general-purpose one-liners to cover most of what you'll need to get useful scripting done.… Read more
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04 April 2014
04 April 2014

PowerShell One-Liners: Help, Syntax, Display and Files

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PowerShell is designed to be used by busy IT professionals who want to get things done, and don't necessarily enjoy programming. PowerShell tackles this paradox by providing its own help and command-line intellisense. We aim to make it a bit easier still by providing a series of collections of general-purpose one-liners to cover most of what you'll need to get useful scripting done.… Read more
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06 February 2014
06 February 2014

Acceptance Testing with FitNesse: Multiplicities and Comparisons

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FitNesse is one of the most popular tools for unit testing since it is designed with a Wiki-style interface that makes it very easy to set up individual tests. Michael Sorens' sixth article in his series delves into the nuances of multiple inputs vs. multiple outputs, multiple rows vs. multiple columns, as well as things that can trip you up when attempting to validate a value.… Read more
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16 January 2014
16 January 2014

Acceptance Testing with FitNesse: Symbols, Variables and Code-behind Styles

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Although FitNesse can be used as a generic automated testing tool for both applications and databases, it excels at unit testing since it is designed with a Wiki-style interface that makes it very easy to set up tests. In part 5, Michael Sorens explains how to use symbols and variables effectively, and why those terms are themselves rather problematic… Read more
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31 July 2013
31 July 2013

Acceptance Testing With FitNesse, The Overview

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FitNesse is an open-source framework for supporting user-acceptance testing. The aim is to make the construction of the individual tests as easy and intuitive as possible. It works with Java, .NET and database applications. It is very useful, but needs a simple 'tips from the trenches' guide to its use. Here is the start of that guide.… Read more
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03 May 2013
03 May 2013

MySQL Compare: The Manual That Time Forgot, Part 1

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Although SQL Compare, for SQL Server, is one of Redgate's best-known products, there are also 'sister' tools that allow you to compare and synchronise MySQL and Oracle databases. MySQL Compare was originally a 'down-tools' project, so never had the extra features or lavish documentation of its siblings. In respect for a highly useful tool, we publish simple instructions of how to use it.… Read more
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