James Kovacs' Weblog

InfoQ has made another of my DevTeach talks available online – TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools. Enjoy!

TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools

As architects, we have all experienced the folly of BDUF (Big Design Up Front) – spending weeks or months perfecting an architecture that fails when it meets the real requirements and real code. Is it possible to design in the small? How can we avoid unintended complexity, which cripples so many code bases? Can we build enough of an architecture to start writing code and then flesh out our architecture as the code evolves? In this session we examine how Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) allow us to solve these conundrums. We will see how we can use TDD/BDD to focus our architectural efforts in the high-value areas of our code base to achieve just-in-time architecture.

A friend just pointed out that my presentation on “Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World” is being featured by InfoQ. (The speaker is always the last to know.) I’m honoured and humbled by the great responses from folks. Worst criticism so far is that the presentation isn’t about TDD/BDD. Well, it’s not. Here is my original description:

Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World

As developers, we spend an inordinate amount of time writing “glue code”. We write code to transform database rows to domain objects… domain objects to view-models or DTOs… We write code to configure inversion of control containers and wire dependencies together. We write code to style our UIs and respond to UI events. Wouldn’t it be nice if this could happen automagically for us? This session will look at using convention-based approaches using Fluent NHibernate and Castle Windsor to reduce the amount of repetitive code and accelerate application development.

So check it out and let me know what you think…

Another year, another fun time at DevTeach. Thanks to everyone who came out to my sessions and asked questions. For those interested, you can download slides and demos from here:

TDD/BDD as Architectural Tools (slides | code)

Convention-over-Configuration (slides | code)

Agile Development with IoC and ORM (slides | code)

N.B. Code is compressed with 7-Zip, a free and awesome file archiver. It supports a wide variety of archive formats, including the high compression ratio 7z format. It integrates into Windows Explorer and is much, much, much faster than the Windows built-in zip archiver. Highly recommended.

Thanks to everyone who came out to my session on Convention-over-Configuration on the Web at TechDays Calgary 2010. I enjoyed sharing my ideas about convention-over-configuration and how it can simplify software development. You expend some serious brain power over figuring out how to enable your application-specific conventions, but everything after that flows easily and without repetition. You end up doing more with less code. During the talk, I demonstrated how frameworks like Fluent NHibernate, AutoMapper, Castle Windsor, ASP.NET MVC, and jQuery support this style of development. (Links below.) I only scratched the surface though. With a bit of creative thinking, you can use these techniques in your own code to reduce duplication and increase flexibility.

• Fluent NHibernate
• NHForge
• AutoMapper
• Castle Windsor
• ASP.NET MVC
• jQuery & jQuery UI

You can grab a zip of the source code directly from here or view the source tree on GitHub here.

Prairie Dev Con was a blast. Great job by D’Arcy on organizing the conference. Thank you to everyone who attended my sessions and especially those who asked questions. I also enjoyed catching up with many of my friends who showed up, even if I was only able to speak to some of the briefly. (It was a busy two days.)

For those of you looking for session slides and code, you can find it here:

jQuery Dojo

NHibernate Dojo

Advanced NHibernate

BTW – I applaud D’Arcy’s bravery in going to a Saskatchewan Roughriders autograph signing in an Alouette jersey and asking them to sign his calculator. Classic! For those of you unfamiliar with the story, the Alouettes beat the Roughriders in the Grey Cup (Canadian football equivalent of the SuperBowl) this year due to a “too many men on the field” penalty in the closing seconds of the game. Fortunately the Roughriders were good sports about the prank. Check out D’Arcy’s blog post for full details and video footage of the stunt.

Another year, another DevTeach. A big thank you to everyone involved. To the organizers, Jean-Rene Roy and Maryse Dubois, thank you for continuing to support and encourage the Canadian developer community. To my fellow Tech Chairs, for helping select an awesome array of both local and international talent to present. To my fellow speakers, for giving some fantastic talks. To all the attendees, for their eager participation, helpful comments, and continued encouragement. To old friends and new whom I spent catching up with in the unofficial speakers lounge, at dinner, and around drinks. There is always something new and fun at DevTeach and this year was no exception. Here are the slides decks and code for those interested:

Convention-over-Configuration in a Web World (pptx | code)

Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World (pptx | code)

Agile Development with IoC and ORM (pptx | code)

If anyone has any questions, comments, or issues with the slidedecks or code, don’t hestitate to leave me a comment.

A few months ago, my friend, D’Arcy Lussier, and I had the following conversation:

D’Arcy:

Want to speak at a developer conference?

Me:

Sure. Sounds awesome!

D’Arcy:

It’ll be in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Me:

Sweet!

D’Arcy:

It’ll be in June.

Me:

Where do I sign up!?!

All joking aside, D’Arcy is putting together what looks to be a great regional conference. I think D’Arcy’s explanation of how this conference came to be describes it best:

“Having lived my life between Manitoba and Saskatchewan, I saw an opportunity to create an event to bring high calibre presenters and sessions to the talented technology professionals of the Canadian prairies, and thus the Prairie Developer Conference was born!”
– D’Arcy Lussier, Prairie Developer Conference Chair

The conference will take place June 2 & 3, 2010 in Regina, Saskatchewan. I’ll be giving two dojos, one on jQuery and the other on NHibernate. If you’ve been wanting to learn these technologies, I’ll be walking you through them – dojo-style – so you can follow along with your own laptops.

NHibernate Dojo

I’ll be covering NHibernate fundamentals, mapping with Fluent NHibernate, and querying with LINQ to NHibernate. This session is intended to be very interactive with attendees working examples on their own laptops and asking questions.

jQuery Dojo

I should have called this session: Dr. Weblove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love JavaScript. In this dojo, I’ll take you on a tour of jQuery and show you that JavaScript is anything but a toy language. JavaScript is a powerful functional language and jQuery allows you to harness that power with truly amazing results. Come learn about selectors, effects, DOM manipulation, CSS, AJAX, eventing, and much more.

In addition to my two dojos and sessions by many other speakers, my friend, Donald “IglooCoder” Belcham will be giving a post-con on “Making the Most of Brownfield Application Development”. If you’ve got a legacy codebase that needs taming – and who doesn’t? – this is a great post-con to check out.

Registration is now open at a price that won’t break your (or your employer’s) bank. Come check it out.

DevTeach is heading back to Toronto in a few weeks (March 8-12, 2010)and you’ll get a bigger dose of awesome than ever before. We’ve got a fantastic line-up of top-notch, internationally renowned speakers. 6 tracks covering Agile, Web, Windows, Silverlight, Architecture, and SharePoint. A metric ton of sessions. (I’m both the Agile and Web Track Chairs and am really excited about the speakers and sessions for each.)

Microsoft Canada is a platinum sponsor and every attendee receives a full copy of Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Premium. (N.B. Conference registration costs less than this subscription alone!)

And if you can’t get enough of that Sugar Crisp James Kovacs,  I’ll be there in full force with two sessions and a one-day post-con on agile development.

Convention-over-Configuration in an Agile World

As developers, we spend an inordinate amount of time writing “glue code”. We write code to transform database rows to domain objects… domain objects to view-models or DTOs… We write code to configure inversion of control containers and wire dependencies together. We write code to style our UIs and respond to UI events. Wouldn’t it be nice if this could happen automagically for us? This session will look at using convention-based approaches using Fluent NHibernate and Castle Windsor to reduce the amount of repetitive code and accelerate application development.

Convention-over-Configuration in a Web World

As developers, we spend an inordinate amount of time writing “glue code”. We write code to transform database rows to domain objects… domain objects to view-models or DTOs… We write code to configure inversion of control containers and wire dependencies together. We write code to style our UIs and respond to UI events. Wouldn’t it be nice if this could happen automagically for us? This session will look at using convention-based approaches using AutoMapper and jQuery to reduce the amount of repetitive code and accelerate application development.

Agile Development with IoC and ORM (Post-Con)

As developers we now have powerful tools in our toolbox, such inversion of control containers and object-relational mappers. But how can we use these tools to rapidly build maintainable and flexible applications? In this pre-con, we will look at advanced techniques such as convention-over-configuration in IoC containers and automapping ORMs to quickly build applications that can evolve over time. We will use test-driven development (TDD) to design and evolve a complete working application with supporting infrastructure during this one-day workshop.

Hope to see you in Toronto!

The Edmonton Code Camp was a lot of fun. It was wonderful to catch up with friends – old and new – over lunch and dinner. Thanks to Dave Woods for inviting me.

I have been enjoying sharing my ideas about convention-over-configuration and how it can simplify software development. You expend some serious brain power over figuring out how to enable your application-specific conventions, but everything after that flows easily and without repetition. You end up doing more with less code. During the talk, I demonstrated how frameworks like Fluent NHibernate, AutoMapper, Castle Windsor, ASP.NET MVC, and jQuery support this style of development. (Links below.) I only scratched the surface though. Other frameworks like StructureMap and FubuMVC also are heavily convention-based. With a bit of creative thinking, you can use these techniques in your own code to reduce duplication and increase flexibility.

• Fluent NHibernate
• NHForge
• AutoMapper
• Castle Windsor
• ASP.NET MVC
• jQuery & jQuery UI

For those of you who attended, you’ll realize why Darth Vader accompanies this post. For everyone else, you’ll have to check out the slidedeck and code:

PPTX | Code

Thanks to everyone who came out to my presentation last night at the Calgary .NET User Group. I enjoyed talking using convention-over-configuration techniques for doing more with less code. I demonstrated how frameworks like Fluent NHibernate, AutoMapper, Castle Windsor, ASP.NET MVC, and jQuery support this style of development. (Links below.) I only scratched the surface though. Other frameworks like StructureMap and FubuMVC also are heavily convention-based. With a bit of creative thinking, you can use these techniques in your own code to reduce duplication and increase flexibility.

• Fluent NHibernate
• NHForge
• AutoMapper
• Castle Windsor
• ASP.NET MVC
• jQuery & jQuery UI

For those of you who attended, you’ll realize why Darth Vader accompanies this post. For everyone else, you’ll have to check out the slidedeck and code:

PPTX | Code