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TDD Opinion: Quality Is a Function of Thought and Reflection, Not Bug Prevention
In a recent post, Michael Feathers argues against the widely held idea that unit testing, by itself, improves code quality. Michael talks about unit testing, integration tests, TDD and Clean Room Software Development, concluding that code quality is a function of thought and reflection, not bug prevention.
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Should the Customer Care about Agile?
The involvement of customer in an Agile project is taken for granted, however in many situations, intentionally or unintentionally, the customer may not follow the Agile practices. An interesting discussion on the Extreme Programming group tries to decipher the situation and find possible solutions.
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Bedtime User Stories: Cowboys and Fairytales
In which David Longstreet claims Agile Software Development is a Fairy Tale that just tries to legitimise Cowboy development, and Geoff Slinker invites him to write a Serious Article based on Logical Arguments and Citing Sources.
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Cockburn on Testing: Real Programmers have GUTs
In a moment of relaxation, Alistair Cockburn had the insight that we may be quibbling over inconsequentialities: "test before" or "test after," what's important to professional programmers is Good Unit Tests. Eureka!
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TDD: Essential Skill or Architectural Landmine?
At JAOO '07 Bob Martin asserted: "it is irresponsible for a developer to ship a line of code he has not executed in a unit test." In this InfoQ video, Martin debated with another well respected software thought leader, Jim Coplien, on this and other topics, including Design by Contract vs. TDD and how much up-front architecture is needed to keep a system consistent with the business domain model.
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Does TDD Really Ensure Quality?
Analysis of a recent study by the National Research Council of Canada's Institute of Technology into Test Driven Development turned up some interesting observations regarding the value that this approach adds, including whether, in fact, it adds any more value to the quality process than testing after development.
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InfoQ Interview: Dave Thomas on the Joys of Life-long Learning
Guest interviewer Jim Coplien chatted with "Pragmatic" Dave Thomas at QconLondon 2007, covering everything from 'agile' publishing and academia to staying limber with code katas. Dave's career advice: Cultivate the passion of a 5-year old!
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Surprising criticism from parting Microsoft development lead
Jay Bazuzi, once Development Lead for the C# Editor, is leaving Microsoft, and he wrote some surprisingly harsh parting words for his friends before he left; things like “OO isn’t a fad” and that “It’s OK to use someone else’s code”.
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Holding a Program in Your Head
Your code: is it that stuff you store in version control or, as Paul Graham argues, "... your understanding of the problem you're exploring"? Graham has written an essay offering eight suggestions for developers trying to understand the code on which they're working - some of which seem to contradict the advice of the agilists.
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Without a Defined Process, How Will We Know Who To Blame?
"A fundamental premise of the 'train-wreck' approach to management is that the primary cause of problems is 'dereliction of duty'" said Peter Scholtes in his 2003 book on leadership. Mary Poppendieck's recent article on process, people and systems asked: "Which is more important - process or people?" and showed how Lean is an alternative to certified process improvement programs like ISO 9000.
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Retire Microsoft's Four SOA tenets?
Microsoft's Harry Pierson (a.k.a. DevHawk) suggest that Microsoft's own 4 tenets for SOA should be retired because, well, they are, in Harry's opinion, useless - at least they are not useful anymore.
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Does specific technology knowledge matter when recruiting?
Does technology matter when it comes to recruiting developers? Or is the way of thinking the only thing that’s really important? In a time when many job advertisements are flooded with technology buzzwords, Dan Creswell found an Amazons recruitment ad that solely focuses on thinking and understanding.
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Iteration Types
What is an iteration in the Agile world? How is it different than previous ways the software community has performed iterations? Are there different types of iterations, and does it matter? The ScrumDevelopment list has been recently discussing type A, B, and C sprints (sprint = iteration in Scrum terminology) as defined by Jeff Sutherland and the ideas are relevant the the wider Agile community.
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Agile, Architecture and the 5am Production Problem
What does "just enough architecture" mean? Can we agree on this? The answers from FDD and XP seem divergent. Michael Nygard, author of Release It! unravels the story of a production problem which typical Agile approaches would not have prevented, asserting that Agile teams may need to attend more to architecture, if they want to sleep through the night once it's deployed in the real world.
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Microsoft and Agile - Divergent Agendas?
Martin Fowler has questioned Microsoft's grip on leading-edge developers. MS has threatened one developer with legal action over his TestDriven.Net extension for VisualStudio Express, and MS development of an incompatible rival to NUnit has alienated many developers. Is there a widening divide between MS and the Agile community, as each pursues different a vision? Now's the time to speak up.