Methods & Tools - News, Facts & Comments Edition - April 2009

*** News *********************************************************

* Oracle Buys Sun

Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt. This acquisition came after Sun broke negotiations with IBM, which was offering $9.40 per share.

http://blog.martinig.ch/?p=270

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* M&T Industry Press Releases Channel

You can follow press releases from software development tools vendors on http://www.softdevtools.com/modules/news/

*** Numbers ******************************************************

* Software Development Training Poll

The question of our last poll was: How many weeks of training have you followed on average the past 3 years?

None	23%
Less than one week	19%
One week (5 days)	15%
One to two weeks	18%
Two weeks to one month	8%
More than one month	17%

Number of participants: 258
Ending date: April 2009

Read our analysis and get additional resources

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* Software Development Training Poll

The current M&T poll is asking: Do you use tools to automate execution of functional software tests? Go to www.methodsandtools.com/dynpoll/vote.php to participate and to see intermediate results.

*** Jobs Opening on SoftDevJobs.com ******************************

Find more than 130 open jobs on http://www.softdevjobs.com/recent

Posting of jobs is free. If your company is recruiting in the software development field, do not hesitate to use this board.

*** Linkopedia ***************************************************

Linkopedia April 2009

"The Optimal Team Size is Five" tries to answer the question "What is the optimal size of a team?"
http://www.noop.nl/2009/04/the-optimal-team-size-is-five.html

Why cheap developers will cost you
http://blogs.msdn.com/joshuag/archive/2009/04/10/why-cheap-developers-will-cost-you.aspx

Look below the UI for more effective and robust UI automated test case designs
http://blogs.msdn.com/imtesty/archive/2009/04/14/look-below-the-ui-for-more-effective-and-robust-ui-automated-test-case-designs.aspx

Molybdenum is a test tool for web applications.
http://www.molyb.org/

Jitr is a JUnit Integration Test Runner.
http://www.jitr.org/

Developing a Complex External DSL
http://www.infoq.com/articles/External-DSL-Vaughn-Vernon

Defect Detection By Developers
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2009/03/0903Rao.html

Professional Frontend Engineering. This video covers the foundations of the discipline, some of its core ideas, and some of its best practices.
http://www.riatube.com/2009/04/16/nate-koechley-professional-frontend-engineering/

The Dysfunctional Daily Scrum Meeting. ScrumMasters show you how things can go wrong as they "play" a daily Scrum Meeting.
http://www.tvagile.com/2009/03/25/the-dysfunctional-daily-scrum-meeting/

How I Can Code Twice As Fast As You. A video on text expander programs.
http://www.softdevtube.com/?p=1687

Find more items in our directories: www.softdevtools.com, www.softdevarticles.com, www.softdevlinks.com, www.softdevtube.com, www.softdevblogs.com

*** Books ********************************************************

Agile Testing by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory

Some authors are good at presenting theories but unable to connect them to practice. Other are good at telling stories from the trenches, but without being able to produce an analysis of the situation and propose some solutions. On the less examined domain of agile testing, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory are, luckily for us, presenting a book that covers both the personal experience of being a tester in agile projects and a conceptual vision of the place of quality assurance in software projects. Thus you will find in this book "stories" that comes from past projects and "mind maps" that helps to have a high-level vision of the material of each chapter.

The book offers resource to organize the quality assurance and testing activities in an agile project. It explains also the relationship between test automation and agility. It provides also a part dedicated to the chronicle of the agile testing activities during project life, showing how every member of the team could contribute to quality.

I think however that the more interesting contribution of the book is Testing Quadrants. This concept classifies testing activities depending on their focus (technology or business) and their intent (supporting the team or validating the product). Adding an agile perspective to the original work of Brian Marick, the authors provide resources and examples for each quadrant to make sure that you will cover all the aspects of testing for your project.

This book is certainly a very valuable resource for every people involved in software testing, even if this is not in an agile project. It will also be valuable for ScrumMasters and project managers that have to think on how to integrate the testing activities in their projects.

Disclaimer: Lisa Crispin has been a contributor to Methods & Tools since 2003

Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com

Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk

*** Conferences: www.softdevconferences.com **********************

* International Test Certification Weeks (ITCW)

Chicago, IL - May 11-15, 2009
Anaheim, CA - June 1-5, 2009
Boston, MA - June 22-26, 2009
Seattle, WA - July 20-24, 2009
St. Louis, MO - August 3-7, 2009

Full day in-depth Software Testing and QA courses taught by Leading Industry Experts in Software Testing & Quality

http://www.iist.org/stpw/

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* Software & Systems Quality Conferences

Software & Systems Quality, May 26-29, Dusseldorf, Germany 
http://www.sqs-conferences.com/de/index.htm

Software & Systems Quality, September 14, Zurich, Switzerland
http://www.sqs-conferences.com/ch/index.htm

Software & Systems Quality, September 24-25 2009, Stockholm, Sweden 
http://www.sqs-conferences.com/se/index.htm

Software & Systems Quality, September 29 - October 1, London, UK 
http://www.sqs-conferences.com/uk/index.htm

Software & Systems Quality, October 28-29 2009, Melbourne, Australia 
http://www.sqs-conferences.com/au/index.htm

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* STAREAST - Software Testing Analysis & Review Conference, May 4-8 2009, Orlando, USA

Providing the largest and most advanced testing forum, STAREAST delivers the latest trends, technologies, and strategies in the industry today. Learn about new products, timely issues, and cutting-edge solutions from the best experts in the business. Find answers to your questions about test management, automation, SOA testing, model-based testing, and many of the other hot-topics.

URL: http://www.sqe.com/go?SE09M&Tweb

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* TeamConf, 5-7 May 2009, Munich, Germany

TeamConf the conference about Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. Join the community and learn more about best practices with Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server.

http://www.teamconf.de/

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* Mini XP Days 2009, May 11 2009, Mechelen, Belgium

Mini-XP Day Benelux 2009 gives you another opportunity to participate in the best sessions of XP Days Benelux 2008. Eight hands-on sessions about software quality, business value, coaching and process change in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. See you there!

http://www.xpday.net/

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* Agile Conference, May 22-23 2009, Bucharest, Romania

Agile & Open Agile is the first big event in Romania about managing software development with Agile methods, about combining techniques, technologies and attitudes to create value both for customers and companies creating software. This event is not about a single method of work, it's about an opportunity to share and discuss thoughts and experiences from software development.

http://openagile.ro/

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* webinale 09, May 25-27 2009, Berlin, Germany

What will be important for the World Wide Web in future? What will change, how will it look like? Visit the webinale 09 in Berlin and talk with our top speakers and many other experts about these questions. Very Early Bird: You save up to 399 EUR if you register by February 27, 2009!

http://www.webinale.de

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* RailsWayCon, May 25-27 2009, Berlin, Germany

No other framework has recently influenced the world of software programming as much as Ruby on Rails has. S&S Media will set up a world-class conference in early 2009 in Berlin featuring the brightest heads of the Ruby on Rails community – creating exposure to the world’s most modern and favourite framework and bringing together all who work with Ruby on Rails!

http://www.railswaycon.com

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* Code Generation 2009, June 16­18 2009, Cambridge, UK.

CG2009 brings developers and leading experts in code generation tools and technologies together in a unique, participative event. Whether you are a veteran or a novice with Domain-Specific Languages, MDA, Executable UML, Eclipse Modeling etc. you will benefit by taking part.

http://www.codegeneration.net/cg2009/

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* Jazoon'09, June 22-25 2009, Zurich, Switzerland

Jazoon'09 will again attract famous Java experts and geeks to Zurich. In contrast to other events, Jazoon places emphasis on the active participation of the community and in turn invites everyone to contribute lectures on interesting research results, developments and practical experiences.

http://jazoon.com/

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* Eclipse Time 2009, June 23-24 2009, Toulouse, France

Eclipse Time is a technical and strategic conference day about Eclipse. Many topics will be presented: strategic, technical, business cases. Attendees are technical people or managers from big companies, SMEs. A second day will be dedicated to training: OSGi, embedded, e4, modeling. Perfect place to meet Eclipse experts, committers, industrial companies!

http://www.eclipsetime.org

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* ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts, June 24-26, 2009, Baltimore, USA

PW&WCBA 2009 is in a new executive program format where each session pushes you beyond the PMBOK and the BABOK to real world industry challenges. New themes include Integrated Thinking Among Multiple Disciplines, Elevating your current PM & BA capabilities and Technology and Processes for Operational Alignment.

http://www.iirusa.com/projectworldjune

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Conference of the Association for Software Testing (CAST 2009),

July 13-16 2009, Colorado Springs, USA

The 4th Conference of the Association for Software Testing features; Jonathan Koomey, Jerry Weinberg, Mike Dwyer, Kevin Brennan, Rob Sabourin, Cem Kaner, James Bach, Fiona Charles, Michael Bolton, Scott Barber & Dawn Haynes. All with 1/3 Q&A. You won’t want to miss it!

http://www.CAST2009.org

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* Agile 2009, August 24-28 2009, Chicago, USA

Attend Agile 2009 for access to the latest thinking in agile adoption. Bridge communities that rarely get a chance to exchange ideas and thoughts. Agile 2009 will be an exciting international conference about techniques and technologies, attitudes and policies, research and first-hand experience, from both the management and technical sides of agile software development.

http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/

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* QA&TEST, 21-23 October 2009, Bilbao, Spain

QA&TEST invites professionals of testing and QA Software to share their knowledge and experiences in the Conference. The Call for Papers started on December 1st and it’s still open. Don’t miss the opportunity to be recognised as an expert in your field of activity!

http://www.qatest.org/en/index.php

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Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, October 26-28, Portland, USA

The mission of The Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference (PNSQC) is to enable knowledge exchange to produce higher quality software. PNSQC 2009 will consist of one-day of workshops and a two-day technical program featuring thought provoking presentations on Moving Quality Forward.

http://www.pnsqc.org.

*** White Papers *************************************************

Transitioning to Agile: Amplifying Traditional Approaches with Agile Technology (USA Only) http://methodsandtools.tradepub.com/c/pubRD.mpl?sr=oc&_t=oc:&pc=w_outs01

Outsourcing Web Projects: 6 Steps to a Smarter Business 
http://methodsandtools.tradepub.com/c/pubRD.mpl?sr=oc&_t=oc:&pc=w_sitb06

*** M&T News *****************************************************

We have changed the infrastructure behind our news site SofDevNews.com. If you want to follow what is going on in the software development world, go to http://www.softdevnews.com/

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* Methods & Tools Article Pipeline

In future issues, you will find articles on:
* Open-Source Messaging Servers
* Responsibility Driven Design with Mock Objects
* Agile coding and testing
* How to Quantify Quality: Finding Scales of Measure
* Scrum Product Owner Guide
* TDD, FDD and BDD Compared
* CMM and Scrum Combined
* Learning View
* Timing and Synchronization in Executable UML
* Test Automation Maturity
* The Spring Framework
* Ajax Security

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Copyright (C) 2009, Martinig & Associates