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

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

* 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 Configuration Management Poll

The current M&T poll is asking: How is software configuration management (change management / version control) performed at your location? Go to http://www.methodsandtools.com/dynpoll/vote.php to participate and to see intermediate results.

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

Find more than 150 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 October 2009

Top 10 reasons why teams fail with Acceptance Testing

Software quality metrics and model

Comparing Open Source Agile Project Management Tools

Icon Search Engine

Refractor - Diagrammer for .Net Assemblies, also support for Javascript.

KanbanFX - A JavaFX implementation of a Kanban board

Article: The Clojure programming language

Article: Scrum in old fashioned software environments?

Video: The Myth of the Genius Programmer

Video: What are the Roles in Scrum

Video: Top 10 Things in Ruby that Every .NET Developer Needs to Know

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

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

Stand Back and Deliver

This is a book about leadership. This is not an easy topic to discuss in a book, but this one gives you some tools that will help you to assess situations and act on them. I think that the authors give a very good definition of leadership when they explain their title: "Standing back does not imply abdicating all responsibility, but rather requires leaders to perform a careful balancing act between stepping back to let the right people in the organization do their thing and stepping up to provide steering when the team has strayed off course". The deliver part exists because the most important measure of success is defined as delivering value to the business.

The first chapter presents the key principles that will be discussed in the book: Purpose - Collaborate - Delivery - Decisions. The chapter about purpose presents a model that allows classifying activities or businesses function according to their market differentiation and mission critical dimensions. The chapter on collaboration emphasizes the importance of letting the people succeed. In the delivery part, the authors propose a model to assess projects using their uncertainty and complexity dimensions. The next chapter exposes ideas on how and when to make decisions. After discussing all these principles, the authors offer you some hints on how to start putting them in practice to change your organization. Finally, a last chapter offers a short summary of all the tools and models discussed in the book. All the concepts are supported by many cases that show how the issues and ideas discussed relate to practical situations.

Despite grouping material from four different authors, this book has a good cohesion and provides a very smooth reading experience. It is certainly recommended to everyone that has to solve business problems through projects in organizations. Reading it, I was even thinking that it contains a lot of very good material that you can apply to your own personal development and projects.

Reference: "Stand Back and Deliver", Pollyanna Pixton, Niel Nickolaisen, Todd Little, Kent McDonald, Addison-Wesley, 162 pages

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)

* Las Vegas, NV - November 2-6, 2009
* Dallas, TX - December 7-11, 2009
* San Antonio, TX, February 22-26, 2010
* Minneapolis, MN, April 12-16, 2010
* Boston, MA, June 14-18, 2010

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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* 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.

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* TheServerSide Java Symposium Europe, October 27-28 2009, Prague, Czech Republic

30+ sessions across 4 tracks. 10 sessions on Tools & Techniques. Highlights include: Agile development, Open Source debugging Tools, Java EE Performance Tuning, Eclipse, and IntelliJ. Get best practices from renowned experts like Andrew Lombardi, Eugene Ciurana, and Kirk Pepperdine. View the agenda and register today!

http://javasymposium.techtarget.com/?Offer=JSEnl1007mt

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* expo:QA International Software Testing and Quality Conference 2009, October 27-29, Madrid, Spain

* 30 lectures,
* Speakers from 10+ countries
* 3 tutorials by Tom Gilb, Jeff Johnson and Leo Van der Aalst,
* Exhibition hall with tools market leaders

Exclusive additional PROMOTIONAL CODE for Methods & Tools Subscribers: EMT-DC

http://www.expoqa.com/en/conference-inscripcion.php

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* ApacheCon US 2009, November 2-6 2009, Oakland, USA

ApacheCon is the official user and developer conference of The Apache Software Foundation, featuring in-depth training classes and more than 60 sessions by the creators of Open Source software such as the Apache httpd webserver, Tomcat, Lucene, Hadoop and more. Free events include a 2-day BarCamp, Open Hackathon, MeetUps & BOFs.

http://www.us.apachecon.com

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* IT Leadership Forum, November 2-4 2009, Phoenix, USA

The IT Leadership Forum, November 2-4, 2009 in Phoenix, AZ focuses on developing business competencies and leadership skills specific to established and emerging IT managers. Become a more effective leader and business partner and increase the strategic input of the IT department across your enterprise.

http://www.iirusa.com/itleadership

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* Agile Development Practices Conference, November 9-13, Orlando, FL

Learn the latest in agile methods, technologies, tools, and leadership principles from industry leaders delivering keynote presentations, in-depth tutorials, and conference classes. Network with your peers and discuss your challenges with experts in agile practices. Register two people at the same time and get half off the second registration!

http://www.sqe.com/go?ADP09MTad

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* Devoxx, November 16-20 2009, Antwerp, Belgium

The Devoxx conference is a special blend of many IT disciplines, ranging from Java to Scripting, FX to RIA, Agile to Enterprise, Security to Cloud and much more.

http://www.devoxx.com/

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* ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts, November 16-18 2009, Anaheim, USA

Hear from industry leading CIO’s and move beyond the PMBOK® and the BABOK® to address REAL WORLD challenges within your industry. Meet intermediate and experienced project, program and portfolio management professionals as well as business analysts, EA and BPM corporate practitioners coming from both the business and IT sides.

http://www.iirusa.com/projectworldnovember

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* Handcrafted Bulletproof CSS, November 23 2009, London, UK

Learn how craftsmanship can apply to the intangibility of web design. Dan Cederholm will guide you though a case study, pointing out the details that matter most when designing flexible, bulletproof designs. Learn, flexible grid design, bullet proof CSS techniques and design, "Progressive enrichment": Advanced CSS that works today, and much more

http://carsonworkshops.com/2009/dancederholm/index.html

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* Agile Specifications, BDD and Testing eXchange, November 27 2009, London, UK

Join Gojko Adzic, Dan North, Lisa Crispin, Liz Keogh, Antony Marcano, Andy Palmer & David Evans to hear the latest on agile testing, agile specification, BDD and more! This 1 day interactive conference takes place at Skills Matter's brand new venue in Clerkenwell. Come and join the community, have fun and learn!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/agile-testing/agile-specifications-bdd-and-testing-exchange/ng-359

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* Lean & Kanban eXchange, December 1 2009, London, UK

Skills Matter is excited to announce the first annual Lean and Kanban eXchange, taking place in central London. The aim is to promote awareness and adoption of Lean and Kanban ideas and techniques. Speakers include Kanban guru David J Anderson, plus Benjamin Mitchell, David Joyce, David Laribee and more.

http://skillsmatter.com/event/agile-scrum/lean-kanban-exchange/ng-359

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* droidcamp London, December 1 2009, London, UK

droidcamp is a 1-day BarCamp taking place the day before droidcon London 2009. The aim of the BarCamp is to be open and participatory where the content is provided by participants. Come and share ideas, hack and meet other Android developers. The only stipulation is that you are using, interested in or want to know more about Android!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/os-mobile-server/droidcamp-london-2009/ng-359

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* droidcon London, December 2 2009, London, UK

droidcon London is the UK's first ever community conference aimed at Android developers. The event will bring together the Android development community in an informal environment where they can share ideas, demo new apps, talk to the experts and network. The event follows the world's first ever droidcon event in Berlin in November.

http://skillsmatter.com/event/os-mobile-server/droidcon-london-2009/ng-359

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* Ruby on Rails eXchange, December 3 2009, London, UK

The 3rd Annual RoR eXchange will feature talks, demo's and discussions, to provide an opportunity for leading thinkers, rubyists, rails fiends and other RoR and Web community members, to get together for a fun day of learning, discussion and sharing and hear about tools, new Ruby or Rails features and more.

http://skillsmatter.com/event/ajax-ria/ruby-on-rails-exchange-246/ng-359

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* Cloud & Grid eXchange, December 7-8 2009, London, UK

This event aims to bring together the leading experts on Cloud & Grid technologies, high scalability and performance, with London's enterprise development community for an informal day of deep technical insight and discussion. Featured speakers include Russ Miles, Alexis Richardson & Dave Felcey - more names and session details to be announced soon!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/cloud-grid/cloud-grid-exchange-2009/ng-359

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* Groovy & Grails eXchange, December 9-10 2009, London, UK

The G&G eXchange is now in its 4th year and as usual will be sold out! The programme is packed with 12 interesting talks, case studies, demos and sessions aimed at helping delegates harness the power of Groovy and Grails. Speakers include the founders of Groovy & Grails Graeme Rocher and Guillaume LaForge. Do not miss this event!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/java-jee/groovy-grails-exchange-2009/ng-359

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* Flex on Java eXchange, December 14 2009, London, UK

This 1-day conference will feature leading experts on RIA, Flex, Java, Spring and Groovy. Programme Lead is Andrew Shorten, Adobe evangelist so is sure to be a very exciting and informative programme. The aim is for enterprise Java developers to learn how Adobe RIA technologies can be harnessed in an enterprise development environment – book now!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/java-jee/flex-on-java-exchange-2009/ng-359

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* Open Source in Finance eXchange, December 15 2009, London, UK

Sponsored by Ingres, this event will feature 6 leading experts who will demonstrate how to harness the power of Open Source technology within the Financial Services sector. Expect sessions on building scalable, secure and robust systems and learn from the very best! Early Bird discounts are available so get your skates on and book now.

http://skillsmatter.com/event/design-architecture/open-source-in-finance-exchange/ng-359

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* Spring in Finance eXchange, December 16 2009, London, UK

This year's Spring in Finance eXchange will bring together the leading Spring experts with innovators, technologists, architects and developers in the Financial Services community for an informal day of deep technical insight and friendly discussion. Speakers include Dave Syer of SpringSource and Jan Machacek of Cake Solutions - more to be announced soon.

http://skillsmatter.com/event/design-architecture/spring-in-finance-exchange-483/ng-359

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* Domain Driven Design eXchange, December 18 2009, London, UK

Want to learn more about DDD from the experts in the know? Want to get involved in the DDD community? Then come along to the winter edition of the DDD eXchange at Skills Matter. Programme Lead is Adam Shimali, the London DDD UG leader, and with talks from DDD gurus including Gojko Adzic, Ian Cooper and Kevlin Henney this will be the best place to learn in 2009!

http://skillsmatter.com/event/design-architecture/ddd-exchange-ii-2009/ng-359

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* iqnite 2010, 27-30 April 2010, Düsseldorf, Germany

The iqnite 2010 in Germany offers you a combination of inter branch presentations, keynotes, workshops and tutorials as well as an exhibition area over the four days. The conference days have up to five presentations from experts and several workshops in parallel so you are able to organise your day due to your individual needs. Our exclusive evening event will provide you with the opportunity of effective networking.

http://www.iqnite-conferences.com/de-en/index.html

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

* More than 1500 Tools on SoftDevTools.com

Created in 2007, the software development tools directory has now more than 1500 references. It is one of the rare web sites where you can see on the same location both commercial and open source software development tools. Tools are categorized by programming language, license, operating system or software development function (software testing, project management, database, IDE, user interface, etc.)

http://www.softdevtools.com/

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* Methods & Tools Article Pipeline

In future issues, you will find articles on:
* Ajax Security
* Large System Refactoring
* Automating Application Development and Delivery Processes
* Domain Driven Design
* Five Symptoms of Mechanical Agile
* Using Wat-iN to leverage common elements in Web Testing
* Make your code more testable
* Model Based Testing
* Continuous Testing

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The content of this publication cannot be reproduced without prior written consent of the publisher - Copyright (C) 2009, Martinig & Associates