Drawing of a city at night with a superman symbol streaming light in the sky

The Email that isn’t Superman

Incredulous: indicating or showing disbelief.

I wanted to use the Superman words: “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” But somehow “Look! In your inbox! It’s spam! It’s a ransomware attack! It’s DHA!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This week I have to share the newest episode in my saga with the Department of Home Affairs (DHA). There are some lessons in it, although I’m still perplexed (my second choice word for today) by it. So I’m not sure what all the lessons are.

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Cannon pointed at a calendar

My plan for a pre-emptive strike

Revitalisation: the act of giving new life or fresh energy to someone or something.

The phrase “pre-emptive strike” sounds so militant! But don’t worry: this is not an update on my ongoing sagas with MICT SETA and the Office of the President. (Although both sometimes encourage thoughts of violence…)

Do you feel the revitalising energy of Spring?

I don’t. I’m tired and frustrated. It’s mid-September and there is still so much that I haven’t accomplished this year. My lack of Spring energy got me thinking about New Year’s resolutions.

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abstract design

Design Patterns – Abstract Factory Pattern

For the last two weeks we’ve looked at two of the factory patterns: the Factory Method and Simple Factory patterns.

This week we’ll be looking at another creational factory pattern, the Abstract Factory pattern (also known as Kit).

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Cards being shuffled in an unusual way

How to flim-flam your users

Flim-flam: to trick, deceive, swindle, or cheat.

It’s only September. Or perhaps I should say, it’s already September. Either way, many of us are tired. Time flies, but we aren’t having much fun. And the work keeps piling up.

The secret, apparently, is to avoid doing the work. This week I share with you some methods to trick your users so that you can do less.

These methods are all tried and tested. I know that, because I was the unwitting user who tested them.

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abstract design

Design Patterns – Factory Method Pattern

Last week, we looked at the (non-GoF) Simple Factory pattern. This was a simple factory consisting of just one concrete class with a static factory method. It didn’t inherit from any other abstraction layer. Now that we know how the simple factory works, it will be easier to understand the GoF factory patterns.

This week we’ll be looking at the first of the related GoF factory patterns, the Factory Method pattern (also known as Virtual Constructor).

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abstract design

Design Patterns – Simple Factory Pattern

Last week, we looked at the Null Object pattern. Remember that this pattern was not documented in the GoF book (horrors!). Remember too that there are many useful and commonly used patterns that are also not included in it. They are no less valid than the GoF patterns.

This week we’ll be looking at another non-GoF pattern, the Simple Factory pattern. This is the easiest factory pattern to understand, and arguably the most commonly used. The simple factory can probably be seen as a design principle rather than a design pattern.

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Tomb raider figure coming out of a computer screen.

My failure as Lara Croft

Quest: a long or arduous search to find something.

I considered a lot of words for what I wanted to write this week:

  • Assiduous, to describe my perseverance on this topic.
  • Lassitude, to describe a condition of lazy indifference.
  • Specious, to describe the lack of merit in the reasons I’ve heard.

Clearly, I’m disappointed about something. And I’m going to tell you all about it. (So you can’t say that women never tell you what’s bothering them. )

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abstract design

Design Patterns – Null Object Pattern

In the past few weeks, we’ve covered design patterns from the Gang of Four (GoF) book “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software”.

The GoF book is a highly influential book, often seen as the start of the software design patterns movement. This has led many people to believe that the GoF book is the “gospel” of design patterns, and that its 23 patterns are the only “true” patterns.

Nothing can be further from the truth!

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