APPropriate Behaviour
The book about all the things software writers do that aren't writing software.
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Author Archives: Graham
What do you think of this?
I’m interested to find out what us Cocoa developers (alright, I know my opinion already) think of the following distinction between Foundation and, well any other object-oriented foundation library. The distinction is this. In many libraries, compound objects (not only … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, software-engineering
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An example of unit testing working for me
Some specific feedback I was given regarding my unit testing talk at VTM: iPhone fall conference was that the talk was short on real-world application of unit testing. That statement is definitely true, and it’s unfortunate that I didn’t meet … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac, software-engineering, TDD, tool-support, VTM
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On Ignoring the Tests
As mentioned over two months ago, I’ll be giving two talks this weekend at the Voices That Matter: iPhone Developers Fall conference. I’m feeling good about both of the talks that I’ve worked on, though I definitely think the Unit … Continue reading
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On documentation
Over at the daily WTF, Alex Papadimoulis writes about Documentation Done Right. His conclusion is spot on: The immediate answer to what’s the right way to do documentation is clear: produce the least amount of documentation needed to facilitate the … Continue reading
Posted in software-engineering, tool-support
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YOUR development team needs security engineers
It can definitely be tempting if your engineers don’t have a whole lot of security expertise to get a consultant in. Indeed this can be a great way to bootstrap a security process, however it then needs to be owned … Continue reading
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On McAfee
Today, Apple’s CPU/motherboard supplier Intel announced that it will acquire McAfee, in a deal worth nearly $7.7B. While this is definitely big bucks, it doesn’t seem like terrifically big security news. Intel probably don’t want the technology. McAfee is the … Continue reading
On voices that matter
In October I’ll be in Philadelphia, PA talking at Voices That Matter: Fall iPhone Developers’ Conference. I’m looking forward to meeting some old friends and new faces, and sucking up a little more of that energy and enthusiasm that pervades … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Talk, threatmodel, tool-support
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On stopping service management abuse
In chapter 2 of their book The Mac Hacker’s Handbook (is there only one Mac hacker?), Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi note that an attacker playing with a sandboxed process could break out of the sandbox via launchd. The … Continue reading
On private methods
Let’s invent a hypothetical situation. You’re the software architect for an Objective-C application framework at a large company. This framework is used by many thousands of developers to create all sorts of applications for a particular platform. However, you have … Continue reading
Posted in code-level, iPad, iPhone, Mac, PCAS, software-engineering
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On authorization proxy objects
Authorization Services is quite a nice way to build in discretionary access controls to a Mac application. There’s a whole chapter in Professional Cocoa Application Security (Chapter 6) dedicated to the topic, if you’re interested in how it works. The … Continue reading
Posted in Authorization, code-level, Mac, PCAS, software-engineering
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