On February 6th I hosted the first Code Retreat to hit West Michigan, and we really couldn’t have asked for a nicer day for a Code Retreat. Well, maybe a little bit warmer weather, but hey, it’s February in Michigan, what do you expect? So after a quick stop at Panera Bread to get some bagels, scones and muffins, I made my way down to Atomic Object HQ to start the coffee brewing in preparation for the attendees. Shortly after sunrise, Nayan Hajratwala showed up to help with any last minute preparations before everyone else showed up.
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Code Retreat GR Recap
17 02 2010Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: agile, code retreat, craftsmanship, cucumber, kata, Ruby, tdd, test first, testing, unit testing
Categories : Conferences
Agile 2009 submission: Functional Testing Flex
27 01 2009I threw my hat into the ring this morning with this submission to the Agile 2009 conference (http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/node/579). Please check it out and submit any comments you may have as I refine the proposal.
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Tags: agile, agile 2009, Conferences, flex, functional testing, java, RIA, testing
Categories : Conferences
Testing Legacy Code
31 10 2008The company I work for, Pillar Technology, recently created this really slick tool called Verde to generate unit tests for legacy code. I have to admit at first I was very skeptical as I had seen some pretty ugly legacy code out there. To make sure we’re on the same page here I personally define “Legacy Code” just as Michael Feathers does in his article “Working Effectively with Legacy Code” as code that has a lack of tests around it. So by this definition code that was written even last week could conceivably be considered “Legacy” if there is a lack of tests.
So to get to the point, now that I’ve had some time to look at the tool, I’m rather pleasantly surprised. I’ve seen this tool in action, and generate a bunch of integration tests for a service layer for an application, which will allow you to refactor confidently. Jump over to the website (http://frogyourcode.com) and check it out.
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Tags: agile, tdd, testing
Categories : Rant
New Flex Maven plugin on the block
26 03 2008I’ve recently discovered a new player in the Flex/Maven plugin game called Flex Mojos. This one is slightly different than the other ones that I’ve seen in that it’s using the new Java based compiler API just released with Flex 3. One nice side effect is that it appears to be much faster than the previous plugins. I’ll be keeping my eye on this one to hopefully implement a decent integration with FlexUnit or even better FUnit.
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Tags: agile, flex, funit, Maven, RIA
Categories : RIA
What did I get myself into now…
12 03 2008Well, it’s now official, I’m writing a book. I’ve signed my contract, and there’s no turning back now. “You’re going to do what?” you may ask. My friend and cohort here at Pillar, BJ Allmon and I have begun the adventure of writing our first book, our first not only writing together but our first for each of us, tentatively titled “Flex on Java” for Manning Publications. Yes, Manning, you know those guys with all the great “In Action” books with the funny looking people on the covers. I’m really excited about this because I’ve always felt they put out good quality books, let’s hope that we don’t ruin that trend.
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Tags: agile, book, flex, java, RIA
Categories : RIA
Refactoring to RIAs – Agile 2008
30 01 2008BJ and I have decided to throw our hat into the ring and submitted a session proposal to the Agile 2008 conference. You can read about it and comment on it on the Agile 2008 submission site here (http://submissions.agile2008.org/node/1676), or I’ve copied the summary below.
In 2002 Macromedia used the term “Rich Internet Applications” (RIA) to describe the next generation of web applications that have all of the benefits of a traditional desktop application, with the flexibility of being deployed via the Internet.
However, it’s 2008 and RIA has not been able to penetrate the business application sector with any real success. The old days of RIA are history. (Maintenance nightmares, weird or no unit testing, and little friendliness toward other agile developer practices.)
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Tags: agile, agile2008, Conferences, continuous integration, flex, java, refactoring, RIA, tdd
Categories : Conferences
Continuous Integration with Flex
16 01 2008Earlier today I had posed a question to a mailing list in the .NET community asking about Continuous Integration with Flex in the .NET world. After a couple of answers from people who obviously did not understand the question, because they just told me to google CruiseControl.NET, someone with some knowledge of TDD and Agile practices stepped up and pointed out the obvious point I was trying to make. There currently is no real good way to automate your FlexUnit tests in such a way that a CI server like CC.NET or HudsonCI would know whether or not all of the tests for your Actionscript classes passed or failed.
So I’ve decided to start a Google Code project called agile-flex, where a couple of other developers and I will attempt to build some agile tools for the Flex framework, starting with a test runner that will help enable continuous integration for Java, .NET, or even just plain old Actionscript. The runner will likely be based off an article I found from Aaron Spjut here. In a nutshell we will create a test runner in Adobe AIR that will generate XML output similar to JUnit and NUnit for the CI server to be able to interpret. This will also enable the generation of report artifacts using the JUnit Report tasks or even a custom XSLT if desired. I’ll post more details as the project continues.
UPDATE… The Flex-Mojos project now fulfills this need, so I’ve deleted the Google Code Project that we started for this.
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Tags: .net, agile, continuous integration, flex, flexunit, java, RIA, tdd
Categories : RIA
