I have found relatively old article about the design principle of design patterns dating around June 6, 2005. Though, the article is a bit old dated ( about 2.5 years), after reading it I have definitely learn something new and refreshing about design patterns and especially about the power and flexibility that can be gained from the use of interface.

The four page article in the form of interview with the design pattern guru Erich Gamma, famous for his landmark book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Addison-Wesley, 1995) and also a member of popular GoF (Gang of Four) is certainly worth to read if you are interested in design patterns and test driven development.

After reading it, I was able to summarize following points that seem quite interesting and important to me:

• Program to an interface, not an implementation.
• Integration between current refactoring tools and XP.
• Composition over inheritance for low coupling and design flexibility in the sense that sub-class always have to make assumptions about the context of the method it overrides (my favorite).
• Something can be public but that does not mean you have published it. Quote from Martin Fowler, but I’m still a bit confused about it and still researching. I have even posted a question in the stackoverflow but have been unable to get any response clarifying my confusion.
• Interface inheritance. I have seen this when I was going through Repository Pattern in NHibernate.
• Smaller objects configuring the container and customizing the behavior of the container.
• Consistency in API design (for example: using depravation support in JAVA, .NET). Seems easy but really hard to achieve especially for beginners like me

I know my recent posts are a bit Google based and fortunately or unfortunately this is also based on a product of Google, Gmail

By the help of TwitterGadget, one can tweet from Gmail. If you are Gmail addict or kinda loyal Gmail user like me, then I hope this would be helpful to you. In order to add twitter service in Gmail just follow these steps:

• Go to Settings section
• Under Settings go to Labs tab
  
• Enable Add any gadget by URL and save the settings
  
• Now if you again browse under Settings tab, you will see new tab called Gadgets
• Just enter the URL: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml in the input box found under Gadgets tab and you are done

If all works fine, you will see twitter gadget in the left side of Gmail below Label section.

References:

• TwitterGadget
• How to Add Gadgets to your Gmail Account

Happy tweeting from Gmail

Finally, Gmail users will be able to manage their to-do list. This feature was missing for a long time in Gmail(also in other web email clients like Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail). I usually manage my to-do list from desktop like most of the people with to-do.txt. But I think I will go for a while with Gmail’s to-do list. In Gmail it has been labeled as Tasks. The feature can be found in the Labs section of Settings link. After enabling this feature, it will appear in the left side of Gmail UI below Contacts.

The to-do list feature is also available in Google Calendar with the label Quick Add. But in near future I hope we would be able to see some additional features with to-do list like sharing the list with others and integrating them with other Google applications (esp. Google Calendar).

Update

More information can be found about this feature here (Gmail Blog Post) .

I am using Google’s hosted application service Google Apps and I have been quite satisfied with the service. But just now I am witnessing some crapy stuff in GMail. Have a look at the screen shots below:

Quite amazing! When I navigate through the Contacts link, it shows the 403 Forbidden HTTP status code but when composing mail or doing any other tasks it works as usual. What the hell is happening? Really no idea whatsoever.

Can anybody explain this to me???

Update:

After googling about this issue it seems that other people are/were also having this type of problem. The issue has been addressed by Google here. but not for Contacts and Chat section, rather than for Login section. Certainly, being a computer geek I don’t think my computer has been compromised or affected by malicious programs/virus as mentioned by Google as the primary cause of this problem. So at the end, I tried by clearing all the browser cache and cookies and guess what it still does not work. And as suggested by Google I tried using Firefox and damm it worked fine. 

I am slowly but surely becoming Chrome fan but this issue has surely made me think that I still should not forget Firefox and other browsers.

I tested my writing style in the site named Typealyzer (via Ayende’s Post) and was little surprised by the result. It categorized me as the scientists. Here is the analysis done by the site about my writing style:

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it – often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

Surprisingly I somewhat agree about their analysis except the category they have marked me into.

Here is what this site predicts what my sketch is when I write:

And here is analysis of my brain’s activity during writing:

Conclusion:

Really cool site to check if you are a kinda blogger or writer. Getting to know your sketch and brain’s figurative analysis is certainly not so bad. So, go to Typealyzer and know about your writing and if possible do leave comment about your writing analysis. It would be nice to know and compare mine with yours .