Have been waiting for Derik to announce this for a while and it's finally happened. He's launched a new service called DimeCasts.NET. The site will be a repository for screencasts he's done/doing on various .NET topics. He's seeded it with a few already on unit testing and I believe there are many more on the way.

There are two reasons I'm excited about this:

  • He's mandated a maximum length of ten minutes for each length. In fact, it's built right into the name. So there are no excuses for skipping any episodes. I've worked on projects where the build process takes longer.
  • He's starting at the very beginning. Episode one shows how to set up NUnit in your project.

The second point means that I may not exactly get a lot out of the casts, at least not the early ones. But the first point means I'm at least going to check them out regularly, if only for the reinforcement. With all the talk of Entity Framework and Persistence Ignorance and specifications, it's easy to forget that a vast number of people simply haven't written a unit test and are looking for a way to get started. And frankly, I have a feeling we're probably scaring them to death most of the time.

Derik has big plans for the site and I have correspondingly high hopes for it. So keep an eye on it and give him feedback.

** UPDATE ** Apparently, Whittaker is a scam artist and a fraud! Of the first four episodes posted, a full 75% OF THEM ARE OVER TEN MINUTES. The second one alone is a whopping TWO AND A HALF MINUTES over his mandate. I can skin two prairie dogs and have 'em on the grill in less time.

Therefore, I must reverse my position on this. I don't care if this is, as I originally described it, porn for your career, you can't break the rules. They're there to keep you safe. So for the love of all that is hillbilly, do NOT click on this link.

Kyle the Announcer