A short foray into TDD and AI to help with a production Access database update

by Jonathan Halder | Sep 24, 2025 | Blogging, MS Access, MS Access Forms, MS Access Reports, MS Access Tables, MS Access VBA Coding, TDD, Versioning

Today’s adventure is using CoPilot ChatGPT-5 to create a test and code based on a production database requirement. I’m using RubberDuckVBA to do unit testing. My initial prompt to start the conversation was: I am wanting to get help with creating tests for...

TDD in Access: Separating Logic from Forms for Cleaner Tests

by Jonathan Halder | Aug 21, 2025 | Blogging, MS Access, MS Access Forms, MS Access VBA Coding, TDD

I decided to do some tests today, but didn’t even get to writing any yet. The issue was that I had a function tied to a button click event event inside a form which referenced various controls on the form. Normally, it’s easy to refactor this by simply...

My VS Code Setup Saga: Copilot, Cogent, and a Few Surprises

by Jonathan Halder | Aug 15, 2025 | MS Access, MS Access VBA Coding, TDD, Versioning

I did more experimentation with Visual Studio Code today and the free Copilot Github and Cogent extensions. Copilot Github interfaces with the Github site Copilot feature which offers a free version. I also got the Cogent extension which acts as an agent for Copilot...

Adventures in AI: My Quest for Smarter Development Tools

by Jonathan Halder | Aug 14, 2025 | Blogging, MS Access, MS Access VBA Coding, TDD

Today I spent the time I would have taken to write an article to start reviewing the 8th light’s TDD starter’s guide: https://8thlight.com/insights/getting-started-tdd-practical-guide I’m excited to practice more TDD. But the lion’s share of...

Pair Programming Dreams and TDD Goals: A Personal Dev Update

by Jonathan Halder | Aug 8, 2025 | MS Access, TDD

I’ve been listening to a podcast called Mob Mentality on Spotify. I just get the audio there but I think there’s a YouTube channel. I’m still interested in mob and pair programming, even though I petered out when trying to organize one. (Sorry Peter...

Breaking the Triangle: Can You Really Have It All in Access Software Projects?

by Jonathan Halder | Jul 23, 2025 | Blogging, MS Access, TDD

I’ve heard in many of the sources I’ve read that there are 3 dials for projects and optimizing for 1 or 2 of the dials will affect the other(s). The dials are: Cost (Expensive vs Inexpensive) Quality (High with lower bugs, Low with more bugs or inefficient...