Anyone else follow DDD, BDD, TDD, Agile, etc groups/communities?

Dj_Jestar

Dj_Jestar

Dj_Jestar

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
29,493
Location
Back in East London
We've had plenty of "help me code this stuff" and/or technical threads, but nothing 'higher level'. I was wondering if anyone else likes to follow the practices and principles laid out by the aforementioned communities and such?

I often attend meet-ups for TDD/BDD and DDD. I try to get in on as many software craftsmanship courses as I can, and also attend the free agile workshops at Skillsmatter when I have the time. I attended the Domain Driven Design eXchange this year and last, and hope to attend next year too. I'm also attending the agile specifications, BDD and agile testing eXchange later in the month.

Anyone else here interested in these areas? Anyone want to discuss/debate them?

:)
 
At the moment I am fascinated by CQRS with Event Sourcing since seeing/meeting Greg Young and Udi Dahan at DDDx. Though I've not got any use of them yet (outside of personal projects) so can't really say they have returned much value (at work/in the real world) for me yet.

A lot of the TDD/BDD workshops I have attended have really helped at work, especially Acceptance testing, and specifically how it has shown me the value of involving the client into the process. Letting them see the real-time feedback of a test passing, and their involvement in the design via these tests. We've also learned a lot from some courses provided by software craftsmanship (Jason Gorman) namely his TDD Masterclass, Refactoring Masterclass and OODesign Masterclass.

If you already "do" those things, then even better for you to attend any groups/workshops to discuss the ideas with other like-minded people. These aren't just "sit there and soak up information" seminars, although they will have presentations, they are also for people to exchange ideas and experiences. Sometimes all you get as a reward is confirmation that what you are doing is right, but most of the time you'll be able to relate to someone else's experience and both of you can discuss and learn. :)

It's also good fun to just have some geek beers with other developers that are not in your organisation and just talk about stuff.
 
Hmm.. I hoped there would be a bigger response to this, even if it was "I don't care for Agile". Maybe posting at the weekend didn't help, so here is a midday Monday bump :p
 
I don't think it'd do any harm to get involved, though there is a level of assumption made about everyone that attends. They aren't there to teach you how to code, only how to manage your project(s) and improve your practices such as test driven development. :) I.e not the technical side.
 
Thanks for that DanF, that sounds like a good setup you've got. :)

Agile (and any sub-set/framework you choose to use) are certainly not easy to introduce. The learning curve is quite steep. Not because there is a massive amount of knowledge to learn, but because it is a mindset change, and you can pretty much guarantee it will be met with resistance.

If you haven't already, I know that Agile groups and the DDD groups would be very interested to hear of your experience. Particularly as you appear to be in an organisation that is quite set in its ways and are being "agile within a non-agile organisation."

And lastly, I completely agree. The point of Agile is not to do this or that, but to be in the right position to decide what is for your organisation and what isn't. :)
 
The project I am on is pure .NET, but we aren't using MVC (though we'd like to, and plan to in the near future) as the project is now ageing on quite a bit. The bulk of the project is in fact unrelated to web, it's a logistics track and trace system that has multiple interfaces (including system to system, as well as web and desktop).

However if the question is "What is my tool of choice?" then I'd say Seaside for Smalltalk or ASP.NET MVC2. Seaside for the pleasure of developing, ASP.NET MVC2 if the client doesn't trust Smalltalk. :)
 
Last edited:
By daily scrum meetings do you mean stand-ups? Do you not have them?

We have 2 a day now! Easily the second most valuable tool in the Scrum framework, the first being retrospectives. First as soon as everyone is in the office, the second roughly half-way through the day (usually not long after lunch).
 
The stand-ups are for each team, not the entire org :) They are also literally stand-ups. They should take no longer than enough time for each participant to briskly describe what they have done since the previous stand-up, and what they are going to commit to for the next standup. Most importantly, they are to report impediments, and should not be dragged out by having a sit down meeting off in some conference room. They should take place where you work (next to your workstations). :) Do you have a work board with story cards etc?

That's fantastic that you have such great collaboration with the business. Are they they stakeholders and product owners, or do you have customers that they talk to (i.e. Are they analysts or actually the users etc?)
 
Last edited:
We find a physical board helps, particularly just to let everyone on the team know what the current score is and all anyone has to do is physically look to see what is next up when they are changing task.

If you haven't tried it, and everyone on the team is willing, I heartily recommend using one :)

Are you guys using practices like TDD? What about pair programming?

Just to add it sounds like you have a wonderful environment to work in :)
 
Last edited:
If you mean me, then yes! We've been practising various Agile er.. practices for years now, and we are constantly improving. :)
 
Skillsmatter are great, but they are a learning company so do a lot of seminars and conferences for subjects I'm not interested in. :)

For tweeps etc., I'd just start with the searches for (and then cherry pick tweeps from) #ddd #bdd #tdd #agile #lean #scrum #kanban. I also search on #cqrs but that's a technical thing, not so much a process thing. :)

EDIT: As for the actual Agile Testing course, I couldn't make it due to illness, but my colleagues said it confirmed most of our practices as Good Things™ like Acceptance Test Driven Design and so forth.
 
Last edited:
Oh right, in that case I'm following people like Greg Young, Udi Dahan, Gojko Adzic (sp?) Kent Beck, Michael Feathers, Bob Martin, Martin Fowler. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom