OT: Presentation on "Testing for Success"

[Indy Nagpal]

Hi guys

This might a little off-topic, but I thought it might interest some of you.

A few weeks back I spoke on the issue of "Testing for Success" at Web on the Piste (an RIA conference) here in New Zealand. My presentation touches upon factors that need to be considered by ColdFusion and Flex teams when they start looking at test-driven development.

I've posted it on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/56srm9

Selection of a testing framework for ColdFusion was one of the elements that I touched upon -- and how MXUnit comes up on top based on various criteria.

Bill has already seen it! Hope it is useful for others on the list.

Indy

Indiver Nagpal

CTO, Straker Interactive

http://www.shadocms.com/

[Marc Esher]

Indy,
I saw that earlier! It inspired me to blog about something i've
been thinking about for a while now, and I linked to your
presentation. My write-up isn't a review of the presentation because
how can you review a slide deck? But I looked at it more as a
follow-up. it's here:
http://mxunit.org/blog/2008/09/ria-tdd-ftw-wtf.html

best,

marc

[Indy Nagpal]

Marc... you raise a very interesting point in your blog post -- The further removed you are from development-time access to debug information, the more time you spend debugging development-time problems.

In fact a similar thought was at the back on my mind when I decided to speak about both server-side and client-side testing in my presentation. But I guess as I started developing the idea of testing in a CF and Flex environment, I realized that I had touch upon organizational and individual factors as well, apart from technological factors like frameworks and the symbiotic relationship between client-side and server-side code.

--
Indiver Nagpal
Straker Interactive

Web: http://www.strakersoftware.com
Email: in...@strakersoftware.com
Skype: indy_at_straker
Phone: +64 9 309 5252

[Marc Esher]

something i was thinking about as i read your presentation was the
notion of an in-house champion. I contribute substantially to a unit
testing framework and I'm having a hell of a time making inroads with
TDD. You (correctly) point out that the organizational attitude is the
most important to change. It's also incredibly difficult in shops
whose leadership isn't predispositioned to seeking that kind of
quality. I guess we just fight the good fight and hope we get some
wins.

best,

marc

[Indy Nagpal]

I hear what you are saying Marc!

I know how difficult it can be for organizations to change their point of view on this issue. And given that TDD and practices around it exist in a particular context, if business managers do not see the utility (in money terms), it becomes a hard sell to start changing practices.

But I think it takes time and experience (assuming that software organizations are able to survive long enough) to look at the software development in this light.

Speaking at conferences serves as a great opportunity to influence. A lot of individuals in a conference are there to get new ideas and find out about best practices. And those who come to a talk are the most likely to be influenced. I heard in the blogsphere that you recently spoke at some conference... What do you think about this?

The other way of exerting influence is through community. And you guys are doing a great job -- both in terms of contributing to the framework and in terms of clarifying concepts etc. through the website and participation in the mailing list. (On another note, are the mxunit and contributor blogs aggregated on MXNA or FullAsGoog?)

But you hit the nail on the head when you talk about "quality" of software. If developing "quality" software is not an organizational priority, TDD is a real hard sell.

[Marc Esher]

we are aggregated on mxna and cfbloggers, but not goog. i've submitted
twice in the past 6 months but never heard anything.

bill and i are doing a presentation at MAX this year on advanced unit
testing, and we're also going ot be talking to the BACFUG while we're
out there. Interestingly enough, finally this year a few more people
from my company are attending max, and i'm going to try to get them to
come to the bacfug meeting. It might come to pass that seeing these
presentations outside of the context of our workplace may be a good
thing. distance, you know?

best,

marc

[Indy Nagpal]

Ah ... didn't realize that MXNA was aggregating your blog. I searched for the title of your post and came up with a blank... therefore I had asked.

I hope to make to Max as well. It will be good to meet up and talk about this.

[Bob Silverberg]

Interesting discussion fellas. I have actually been thinking quite a
bit lately about how much I appreciate unit testing and the benefits
that I am reaping from its use. I was planning a blog post about it,
to hopefully entice more people into the realm, and reading this
thread has inspired me to write that post.

Being a one-man shop, I'm not experiencing that much resistance to
implementing TDD. I've only just started, and I've only been
attempting to change my development style to a more OO approach over
the past year or so, so I'm not sure how relevant my experiences will
be to you.

If you're interested to read about some of the benefits that I've
found to unit testing, over and above the goal of "quality" software,
you can find the details here:

http://www.silverwareconsulting.com/index.cfm/2008/9/10/Some-Benefits-of-Unit-Testing

Thanks again for an excellent tool, and now a great discussion forum.

--
Bob Silverberg
www.silverwareconsulting.com

[Marc Esher]

excellent! this can go in my list of links from another thread i
started yesterday. Many thanks Bob.

[Bob Silverberg]

That was actually another reason I created it as a blog post rather
than just a response.

Thanks for all your great work,
Bob

--
Bob Silverberg
www.silverwareconsulting.com