Udemy courses in Java and SQL

Over the past two years I have taken a lot of really good training courses at Udemy. It's a great way to get instructor led training on a wide variety of technology topics. From that, there are two courses that rise to the top because they are very well done and provide a wealth of information to the QA engineer. The first is a programming course. Since Java is the language of automation, I highly recommend: Java Programming Masterclass for Software Developers by Tim Buchalka You know you're in for a lot of information when the course is a staggering 80 hours of content. It covers the basics of Java, how to get it installed, picking an IDE, a quick overview of data types, and how to get your first programming running. Tim then gets into the meatier topics of classes, objects, inheritance, constructors and encapsulation. And for each topic there are plenty of code examples, exercises and demos. There […]

Why use a Mac for development?

There are multiple reasons why I develop and test on the Mac. Primarily, it's the platform my company has chosen. But beyond that, over the last two years I have replaced almost all of my Windows machines with Mac computers. I have a Mac Pro at work and at home, along with a Mac mini, a pair of iMacs, and a few combinations of MacBooks. Not to mention my collection of iPads going back to the original model, and a couple of iPod Touch devices. Well before that, I got my start with the Apple II, a machine I still hold in very high regard. By the time college came around, I was working on PC clones with only occasional stints on a Mac. Then it became all Windows based machines. I didn't really come back to Apple until the original iPad came out. To me, that device was magical. It was so utterly brilliant in both form and function. […]