I created a VSCode extension recently (awalsh128/vscode-keep-sorted) and learned a lot of lessons trying to set up the test environment. What I wanted was:
Tests that run against a real VSCode instance, not mocks. An immutable test workspace, so every test starts from the same files. A log file per test, so I can see what the extension did when a test fails. Principles # Some things I learned the hard way about testing extensions.
VSCode Keep Sorted Extension 0.0.1 Released I recently released lightweight VS Code extension that automatically keeps sorted blocks in your code organized using Google’s Keep Sorted formatter, seeing a gap in an available extension that handles code blocks generically and with options to modify behavior.
If you have experience in the software engineering field, an interview process can test the experience you have; projects, production scenarios, designs. Unfortunately, for junior positions and those out of college, there isn’t much to test for. Since most are computer scientists, you could test knowledge of algorithms and data structures but does that really prove the ability of a candidate? Knowing the upper bound complexity of an algorithm’s runtime is important but what about when a constant multiplying factor means the difference between production being up and down. We don’t have a solution for the Traveling Salesman Problem but we have very good and practical approximations (e.g. flight scheduling).
Introduction of compiler basics using a toy example.
Customizable and modernized Doxygen themes.
Create a testing harness for your created GitHub Actions.
