Weekly tasks/commitments

[Mark Levison]

Interesting making a public commitment is helping to keep me honest and focused.

The week before last I got one of the three things I aimed for done. This week is better:

My commitment
1) Pair with someone to write a real unit test for this project. Developers committed to Scrummerfall this iteration ;-(. Wouldn't commit to Unit Testing this week but have booked for next week. Its a start.
2) Review some code with the team. We've got a 500+ line data access class/monster lined up. I smell some duplication and lumping together. "I love the smell of duplicate code in the morning"[1]. Done. Now to get them to make the changes.
3) Introduce the team to FxCop/StyleCop and just for fun, NDepend. Didn't happen.
4) Start working with the team to create a coding standard. Booked a meeting with a different team to get ball rolling
5) Write a news item on quality for InfoQ. Done. http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/04/agile_quality
6) Start work on A2009 Session. "What Learning Approaches are Best for your Brain". Not quite - will start work on this weekend.

So I have 2 that are "Done, Done" and 2 that are booked for next week. Wow - I doubled my velocity.

Next Week:
1) Pair with someone to write a Unit Test. Its booked.
2) Review another class with the team
3) Work with team 2 on a coding standard
4) Work with team 2 on doing first acceptance tests (WatiN or Robot Framework/Selenium and/or FitNesse Slim)
5) Work with team 2 on doing Unit Tests.
6) 3 Hours work on A2009 Session. "What Learning Approaches are Best for your Brain".

I think I will suceed in getting all of these done this week.

How was your week and what will you do?

--
Cheers
Mark Levison
Blog: http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/
Recent Entries: Agile/Scrum Smells:  http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2008/06/agilescrum-smells.html
Agile Games for Making Retrospectives Interesting: http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2008/10/agile-games-for-making-retrospectives-interesting.html

[Francesco Rizzi]

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Mark Levison <ma...@mlevison.com> wrote:

Interesting making a public commitment is helping to keep me honest and focused.

[...]

How was your week and what will you do?

Ok, I give up: time is running out and I'd rather admit defeat on one of my tasks than doing a poor job.

My commitments for the week ending today:
1~ GREEN For myself: Keep reading "Code Complete": admittedly, I didn't read as much of it as I would have liked - about 1 chapter- but it's been a busy week.

2~ GREEN: For my team: give the presentation that was supposed to take place last week: it was interesting - good participation, and I think it sparked a few good discussions (even after the presentation was over). I think some people thought that my presentation was an indication that the whole organization will jump in and "do BDD" tomorrow so there were a few concerns. Other parties in the organization have expressed interest for MDA/MDD, so there might be interesting times ahead.

3~ RED: For everyone else: write at least one blog post on an [SC]-related topic: Yeah, this is the part where I run out of time, sorry. I started gathering some material and writing the post, but I don't think I'll have it up and posted tonight. Perhaps over the weekend.

For next week: Until I get 3 tasks done I'm not going to push up to 4 (although "If you want something done, give it to someone who is busy")
1~ For Myself: Explore 1 Design Pattern
2~ For My Team: Engage team tech leadership on the topic of Code Reviews (yeah nasty topic, but we're not doing them well at all... and I am convinced the code quality is suffering because of it more than it should) - try and gather ideas from everyone involved before pushing my own
3~ For everyone else: finish and publish the post started last week ("Craftsmanship")

Thank you, for keeping me straight
F.

[Michael Hunger]

Mee too:

#1 IntelliJ Session
* RED: had no time to prepare material, instead tried to teach much IDE skills during pair programming and coaching
#2 blog about: Is modern Architecture what we're looking to when talking about 10000 year old craftsmanship?
* RED: did not make it
#3 starting modularizing the retail system we're working on, beginning with the RFID extension
* YELLOW:
* we started it, broke everything in the attempt, then threw it away and started again, used what we learned in the
first attempt
* second time is much better now, working system at all time
#4 code kata: game of life (OO, FP, procedural)
* GREEN:
* continued with the clojure GOL, asked for improvement help on clojure mailing list
** tried lazy eval for speedup
** read some more about GOL
** simple parser for input data
* updated the scala version with some stuff I learned

What else (from previous week):
* TWO Code Reviews, one went really well, the other one was kind of ok, no tests from the guys *sigh*
* several days of pair programming
* worked on the Upgrades List: Did three - Final Modifier, Rename, Delete
* continued reading Holub on Patterns, second part (embedded sql database) is much better
* created an java xml builder dsl (with enums as symbols) and put it up to github

* some coaching on (xmlrpc, ws-*, java-unix-printing, bea weblogic configuration)
* some architectural work on communication infrastructure

Have fun
Michael

--
Michael Hunger
Independent Consultant

Web: http://www.jexp.de
Email: michael...@jexp.de

Enthusiastic Evangelist for Better Software Development

Don't stop where you are: http://creating.passionate-developers.org
Sign the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto at: http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org
We support Software Engineering Radio (http://se-radio.net)

[J. B. Rainsberger]

This week I taught an in-house course on test-driven development that
included plenty of teamwork and communication, as I usually do. In the
course, I managed to help the team get their managers in the room to
talk through how they would fit TDD into an increasingly heavyweight
process. The managers assured the programmers that they'd have the
freedom they needed to practise TDD. That worked for me.

This coming week I don't plan to do anything to directly influence
software craftsmanship, although I'll be doing some Agile Alliance
Board work at a face-to-face meeting early in the week in San
Francisco, then presenting "Your Agile Sales Approach Sucks" with my
esteemed colleague Niraj Khanna later in the week in Montreal.
--
J. B. (Joe) Rainsberger :: http://www.jbrains.ca
Diaspar Software Services :: http://www.diasparsoftware.com
Author, JUnit Recipes
2005 Gordon Pask Award for contribution to Agile practice
Register for Agile 2009 at http://www.agileregistration.org

[Olof Bjarnason]

If I search twitter for #scaction and look up myself I find>

1. #scaction Printed some of my BDD-like specs written in C# using
NUnit only, going to discuss them tonight at alt.net meeting
2. #scaction Re-trying K. Braithwaite's "TDD as if you meant it" at work today

1. GREEN Went all right; we were three guys looking at source code at
a pub, nerdy but we got away with it :)
2. YELLOW I really did make an honest attempt, but that excercise is
just mind-boggling! So I gave up after an hour of pulling my hair and
producing a really small class. Will return to it since it feels
extremely thought-provoking.

Tasks for upcoming week:

1. Read another chapter of McBreens "Software Craftsmanship"
2. Finish playable version of two-week home-project "TDDed pong-clone
for one player"

2009/4/25 J. B. Rainsberger <jbrain...@gmail.com>:

--
twitter.com/olofb
olofb.wordpress.com
olofb.wordpress.com/tag/english

[Keith Braithwaite]

On Apr 25, 8:50 am, Olof Bjarnason <olof.bjarna...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If I search twitter for #scaction and look up myself I find>
>

> 2. #scaction Re-trying K. Braithwaite's "TDD as if you meant it" at work today
>

> 2. YELLOW I really did make an honest attempt, but that excercise is
> just mind-boggling!

That's the K. Braithwaite promise: boggling minds since 1971.

Some people who have tried this exercise have appealed for a "worked
example" to show the principle in action—do you think that would help?
I'm almost convinced that I should do that, although I worry about
stealing the aha! from folks.

> So I gave up after an hour of pulling my hair and
> producing a really small class.

That's probably a sign that you were on the right track.

> Will return to it since it feels
> extremely thought-provoking.

I'd love to hear how that goes.

Keith

[J. B. Rainsberger]

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 04:52, Keith Braithwaite
<ke...@keithbraithwaite.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Some people who have tried this exercise have appealed for a "worked
> example" to show the principle in action—do you think that would help?
> I'm almost convinced that I should do that, although I worry about
> stealing the aha! from folks.

I've tried this with my Point of Sale exercise. I love it. I find it a
little too alien for an Intro audience, but people with a year or so's
practice at TDD find it fascinating.

[Olof Bjarnason]

2009/4/25 Keith Braithwaite <ke...@keithbraithwaite.demon.co.uk>:

>
>
>
> On Apr 25, 8:50 am, Olof Bjarnason <olof.bjarna...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If I search twitter for #scaction and look up myself I find>
>>
>> 2. #scaction Re-trying K. Braithwaite's "TDD as if you meant it" at work today
>>
>> 2. YELLOW I really did make an honest attempt, but that excercise is
>> just mind-boggling!
> That's the K. Braithwaite promise: boggling minds since 1971.
>
> Some people who have tried this exercise have appealed for a "worked
> example" to show the principle in action—do you think that would help?
> I'm almost convinced that I should do that, although I worry about
> stealing the aha! from folks.

Hmm. Well at your London kata there were many ppl misinterpreting the
rules to begin with IIRC. Maybe if you could cut the rules into halv
(7-8 rules is a lot, 3 is better) or otherwise do a worked example to
enable understanding the algorithm behind this idea more easily. So
yes, a worked example might be a good idea. Or refactor the rules :)

>
>> So I gave up after an hour of pulling my hair and
>> producing a really small class.
> That's probably a sign that you were on the right track.
>
>> Will return to it since it feels
>> extremely thought-provoking.
> I'd love to hear how that goes.
>
> Keith
> >
>

--
twitter.com/olofb
olofb.wordpress.com
olofb.wordpress.com/tag/english

[Keith Braithwaite]

On Apr 26, 8:29 am, Olof Bjarnason <olof.bjarna...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hmm. Well at your London kata

No martial arts metaphor was used in the preparation of my session.

> there were many ppl misinterpreting the
> rules to begin with IIRC.

As far as misinterpreting the rules goes, that's an interesting
observation. Which of these would you say best describes the
situation:
1) people couldn't figure out what the rules said to do
2) people could figure out what the rules said to do, but found
themselves unable to do that
3) something else

> Maybe if you could cut the rules into halv
> (7-8 rules is a lot, 3 is better)

Fewer rules would be better, but I have a strong feeling that (2)
above is mostly what happened. Let me see if I can reduce the number
of rules without creating loopholes through which the learning will
escape.

thanks for your feedback.
Keith

[Keith Braithwaite]

On Apr 26, 4:31 am, "J. B. Rainsberger" <jbrainsber...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 04:52, Keith Braithwaite
>

> I've tried this with my Point of Sale exercise. I love it. I find it a
> little too alien for an Intro audience, but people with a year or so's
> practice at TDD find it fascinating.

So now I'm thinking...I would not have thought to use this exercise
with a neophyte audience, but really, why not? Why not set neophytes
up to think that (something like) this is the way to do TDD? After
all, there's not much more to this than taking the"rules" of TDD at
face value and doing only and exactly what they say, rather than doing
what you want to do but in a way compatible with them.

Maybe TDD should be alien. Maybe TDD can be usefully thought of alien
programming technology from a distant planet, one where they give a
damn about code.

Keith

[Olof Bjarnason]

2009/4/26 Keith Braithwaite <ke...@keithbraithwaite.demon.co.uk>:

>
>
> On Apr 26, 8:29 am, Olof Bjarnason <olof.bjarna...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Well at your London kata
> No martial arts metaphor was used in the preparation of my session.

argh :)

My initial message included "kata (or what it's called)" -- should
have kept that heh.

>
>> there were many ppl misinterpreting the
>> rules to begin with IIRC.
> As far as misinterpreting the rules goes, that's an interesting
> observation. Which of these would you say best describes the
> situation:
> 1)  people couldn't figure out what the rules said to do
> 2)  people could figure out what the rules said to do, but found
> themselves unable to do that
> 3) something else
>
>> Maybe if you could cut the rules into halv
>> (7-8 rules is a lot, 3 is better)
> Fewer rules would be better, but I have a strong feeling that (2)
> above is mostly what happened. Let me see if I can reduce the number
> of rules without creating loopholes through which the learning will
> escape.

Yeah (2) was predominant with me and my coding partner.

But also, we had to re-read the rules several times to check for not
breaking any of them, it would have helped if it was 3 rules instead
of 7 or 8 (with sub-rules).

Actually I think giving illustrative examples trumphs rule sets to
explain things. Just as unit tests are better suited to learn
algorithms from, than production code.

Humans are good at generalizing from examples, but bad att
examplifying from general definitions, IME. (I might write something
about that some time, since it's an observation that has followed me
ever since first maths class at Uni, all the way to TDD in recent
years).

>
> thanks for your feedback.
> Keith
> >
>

--
twitter.com/olofb
olofb.wordpress.com
olofb.wordpress.com/tag/english

[J. B. Rainsberger]

On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 03:03, Keith Braithwaite
<ke...@keithbraithwaite.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> So now I'm thinking...I would not have thought to use this exercise
> with a neophyte audience, but really, why not?

I see only one reason why not: it will scare them too much. When I
create my "Sale" and "Display" classes with my first test, I even tell
people: "I don't even need those yet, but if I didn't create them,
you'd all look at me like I'm crazy, and I don't want to go there
yet."

[Olof Bjarnason]

2009/4/26 Keith Braithwaite <ke...@keithbraithwaite.demon.co.uk>:

Hehe nice fantasy :)

But I agree with J.B. it is not for the light-hearted. Also, I'd
hazard it's a pedagogical nightmare to tell what is production code
and what is not, using you "TDD slavery algorithm" :)

[dvydra]

Mark,

You situation sounds familiar. We created a T-Shirt to help in this
matter :)

http://www.cafepress.com/buildcop

Best,
David
www.testdriven.com

> 1) Pair with someone to write a real unit test for this project. *Developers

> committed to Scrummerfall this iteration ;-(. Wouldn't commit to Unit

> Testing this week but have booked for next week. Its a start.*

> 2) Review some code with the team. We've got a 500+ line data access
> class/monster lined up. I smell some duplication and lumping together. "I

> love the smell of duplicate code in the morning"[1]. *Done. Now to get them
> to make the changes.*
> 3) Introduce the team to FxCop/StyleCop and just for fun, NDepend. *Didn't
> happen.*