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Methods & Tools - May 2019
Sharing global software development expertise since 1993

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*** Updates ***

Last Articles Published on Methods & Tools Website

Knowing Where to Start Cleaning Your Code Learn how you can use code churn, a measure that indicates the amount of change that takes place in a particular area of code during programming, to determine where you should clean your code and use a refactoring approach. Read more...

*** From The Archives ***

Articles from Methods & Tools' Archives

Aspects of Kanban Kanban is a way of creating a method, and generating metrics, in order to improve capability to meet a purpose. The remainder of this article discusses five aspects of a Kanban System: workflow, visualisation, work in process, cadence and continuous improvement. These aspects are not practices to be followed, but key areas to consider when thinking about the method used to change and improve an organisations delivery capability.. Read more...

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*** Quote of the Month ***

When they don't have an automated suite of tests acting as a safety net, the programmers may start viewing the testers themselves as a safety net. It's easy to imagine that Joe Programmers's thought process goes like this: "I ought to go back and add some automated unit tests for formatEmployeeInfo, but I know Susie Tester is going to check every page where it's used manually. She'll see if anything is off, so I'd just be duplicating her effort."

It's nice that a programmer would think so highly of the tester's talents, but Joe is headed down a slippery slope. If he doesn't automate these unit tests, which other tests might he skip? Susie is going to be awfully busy eyeballing all those pages.

Teams that have good coverage from automated regression tests can make changes to the code fearlessly. They don't have to wonder, "If I change this formatEmployeeInfo module, will I break something in the user interface?" The tests will tell them right away whether or not they broke anything. They can go lots faster than teams relying exclusively on manual testing.

Source: "Agile Testing", Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, Addison Wesley

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This month, the Methods & Tools website is supported by Software Testing Magazine and Scrum Expert. We thank them for their support.

*** Software Development Linkopedia ***

Web site: A Taxonomy of Software Smells

Text: Applying the Gestalt Principles to your code

Text: Multiple Perspectives On Technical Problems and Solutions

Text: The Science of Silence: Intentional Silence as a Moderation Technique

Text: Measuring Joy for Software Developers

Text: Testing in production: Yes, you can (and should)

Text: In praise of Swarming

Text: Breaking the Test Case Addiction

Text: Software Testing Doesn't End With DevOps

Text: 4 Reasons Why Scrum Needs Testers From Day 1

Video: Blockchain Is the Answer, But What Was the Question?

Video: The Ethical Software Architect

Video: Integration Tests & Test Containers

Video: Guide Refactoring With Behavioral Code Analysis

Video: Teaching and Coaching Exploratory Testing

Video: Deliver Customer Value Instead of Story Points

Tools: Zalenium is a A flexible and scalable container based Selenium Grid with video recording, live preview, basic auth & dashboard.

Tools: TTool is a toolkit dedicated to the edition of UML and SysML diagrams, and to the simulation and formal verification (safety, security, performance) of those diagrams. TTool supports several development stages of embedded systems