Using Mylyn to manage development tasks

Post CFUnited, I am trying to implement many of the tips and tricks I learned about at the conference. One of those is a tool called Mylyn. Mylyn is a plugin to the Eclipse IDE that can hook into many bug tracking tools and help manage development tasks. The eyecatching feature of Mylyn is the context focused tasks. Simply put, Mylyn shows you only the relevant files and views for the task on which you are working. I’m new to Mylyn having just installed it a day ago. I’m actually using an older Eclipse install (3.2) which means I’m using Mylyn 2.0. It has since been updated to Mylyn 3.0 for use with Eclipse 3.3+. I had a lot of issues with Europa and CFEclipse last year and just never updated on my PC.

I’m taking the plunge into CFUnit

I have gotten to the point now where I’m fairly comfortable with Eclipse and CFEclipse, having used both for the past year. I don’t even have Dreamweaver installed on my new work laptop. Since I was in software QA before becoming a developer I am aware of the importance of unit testing, but have not really practiced it. After last year’s CFUnited, I was introduced to CFUnit, but never really got into it. So here I am ready to dive in to CFUnit. Over the next few days, weeks, etc., I will be documenting my experience with this seemingly useful tool. With the help of the most awesome ColdFusion user community, I have managed to locate a long list of references and tutorials. My adventure begins this evening as I try to set up unit tests for the latest application I’m working on in the office. The CFCs are already in place, so all I should need to do is set up my tests. Wish me luck.