Please excuse my cheesy captions

Next year, my friend, Dave, will help us capture complete audio recordings of each session. In the meantime, we’ll try to get some video recording practice at some user group events, in the hopes that by 2010, we’ll be able to get a video transcript of the entire event.

 

Bill Zack gives us a ride in the cloud, with Azure

 

Rob Sedor shows us how to code and chew gum at the same time, with .NET Concurrency

 

Allan da Pinto Costa shows us the lightness of Silverlight with WCF

 

Aaron Armstrong introduces us to the ADO.NET Entity Framework

 

Dmitry Lyalin meshes with the Live Framework

 

Michael de la Maza uses games to build agile teams

 

Richard Hale Shaw shows a SRO crowd how to apply LINQ the right way

 

Bill Zack digs deeper into the cloud with SQL Data Services

 

This packed audience will go home armed with more tools in its arsenal

 

Raja Sekhar Karumuru makes his debut on the wings of AJAX and SilverLight

 

Richard Hale Shaw mesmerizes the crowd for three straight sessions

 

Sunil Kadimdiwan dazzles us with charts and gauges in Reporting Services

 

Chris Shain shows us how to pull together distributed data

 

Peter Laudati shows how to make ourselves MVPs with the MVC

 

Jason Sliss goes live with TDD in action

Running these things are incredibly exhausting, but so, so, so worth it! The craziness is mainly early in the morning, when everyone is registering. Thankfully, Silvia Goncalves and my wife, Lorri, saved the day. It was a last minute decision for Lorri to come, so she could take photos of each session. But it turned out her help was greatly needed for registration. We did not expect the kind of rush we had, and there’s no way Silvia could have handled it on her own. Last year she had Vicki to help her. Thanks Lorri! I love you!

But the real craziness started even earlier, when we had to pick up breakfast from Dunkin’ Donuts. I had placed the order on the phone on Thursday, and clearly mentioned several times that it was for Saturday morning pickup. Of course, they called me on Friday, wondering where I was. I was afraid they’d keep the same set of food for Saturday, but, thankfully, it was fresh.

Then, on Saturday morning, Lorri and I met Rob Sedor at Dunkin’ for the pickup. We must have all been half asleep, because after thinking we filled the cars, and just about to shut the doors, one of the workers ran out with a couple of bags of Munchkins we forgot to take. We squeezed those into the cars, and took off, stopping at the red light on the corner, when I get a call. From Dunkin’. Telling me to wait. Again. With three workers running out with the bags of 120 bagels! How did we forget the bagels?!?

Of course, I left my space pen there (since their pen ran out of ink). The girl who helped us told me she put it aside for me. I just hope it’s still there tomorrow.

Either way, I think breakfast came off really well, and I definitely recommend Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast for events like this. Their coffee is great, and the food was perfect breakfast food, and everything was packed nicely.

Silvia helped us get breakfast up to the second floor, and I think I lost like 10 pounds just going back and forth to the car and up and down the stairs. Thankfully, a couple of carts and an elevator helped us finish and give my aching knees a temporary break.

It did not take long for the mad rush of attendees, well before the starting 8:00 general session. Lorri and Silvia kept them in line, and got a good flow going quickly, while Leo Junquera, Louis Edouard and Rob made sure all the rooms had working equipment, posted signs (he made some great wall posters of the schedule with a plotter), and prepared for the general session, and I ran around making last minute corrections to the signs with the marker.

I love how people naturally organize themselves at these events. Except for getting people over a few technical issues, and some coordination hot spots, after our preparation, it’s really run by the presenters and attendees.

I spent most of the rest of the day taking short videos of each of the sessions, while Lorri took photos. I’ll have them posted soon on the code camp website. Figures that her camera’s auto-focus died on her during the day. Too bad Lorri and I had to leave before the last session, the raffles, and the speaker dinner, but illness struck us suddenly. Of course, Leo, Louis and Rob brought the rest of it home.

Thanks so much, everyone! Amazing job by all! Also a huge thanks to Microsoft! I’ll try to list everyone here, in order of appearance

People:
======
Lorri Freedman
Rob Sedor
Silvia Goncalves
Louis Edouard
Leo Junquera
Bill Zack
Peter Laudati
RajaSekhar Karumuru
Aaron Armstrong
Edwin Ames
David Isbitski
Don Demsak
John Avery
Ivan Krivyakov
Rick Minerich
Richard Hale Shaw
Jason Sliss
Chris Shain
John Baird
Dmitry Lyalin
Sunil Kadimdiwan
Allan da Costa Pinto
Michael de la Maza
David Douglass
Phil Denoncourt
Andrew Novick
Louis Hendricks
Milan Negovan

Contributors:
==========
Connecticut Information Technology Institute (CITI)
University of Connecticut (UCONN)
webloyalty.com
Pitney Bowes
PartnerRe
Microsoft
Infragistics
JetBrains
Red Gate
Telerik
Xceed
CozyRoc
Kentico
Applied Innovations

Food:
====
Dunkin’ Donuts
Planet Pizza
The Capital Grille

I plan on updating my original lists I put together after last year’s code camp. We learned more this year about how to run these, and I’m sure we’ll continue to learn more each year.

Maybe, now that code camp is done, I’ll get back to more regular blog posts. But, then again, the NYC code camp is rumored for January, and I volunteered to help with that…

Now that we’re at the close of another bitterly disappointing season, I think it’s time we Mets fans realize that we’re not really entitled to miracles. We’ve had our four or so miracles throughout the years. But for some reason, while other fans hope for miracles, we always expect them.

And I think that’s the crux of our problem. I think this may be why we take it so hard when we fall short. We feel betrayed by our prayers. How many other teams’ fans get so suicidal when they fall short? I don’t believe that even Cubs fans get so depressed. The difference between Cubs fans and Mets fans is that although we both always expect disappointment, we Mets fans still believe that miracles are around the corner.

We go into every season with more than just hope — we somehow always expect that although we’ll be bitterly disappointed during the course of the season, we’ll still be saved by some incredible, last-ditch act of heaven, and that we’ll somehow be bathing in the glow of smiling deities.

Face it, folks. We’re no different than any other team. We’ve had some remarkable luck — more than our fair share, but the only thing that’ll get us back to a championship is good pitching, hitting, fielding, and fundamentals.

Nothing else.

We’re not that special, and I think one of the main reasons other teams get so much satisfaction in beating us is because of our sense of entitlement.

If there’s any lesson we should learn from the past few years, it’s this: our team is mortal, they have to work just as hard as any other team, and no one can save them but themselves.

I’m hoping that if we do win again in the near future (if again in our lifetimes), it isn’t caused by what could be perceived as divine intervention.

The continuing goal of the Code Camps series is to provide an intensive developer-to-developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating. The primary focus is on delivering programming information and sample code that can be put to practical use. The event is free.

This is an event by the developer community, for the developer community. The content is original and developed by you. Let’s work together to make this event a success.

The call for speakers is now open! (Registration will open in a couple of weeks.)

Please submit your ideas for sessions. The topic does not have to be completely .NET specific. Although we may primarily use .NET tools, we’re often using other tools these days when they make sense for the job. Here are some suggestions:

• SQL Server 2008
• Visual Studio 2008
• Silverlight 2.0
• Web 2.0
• ALT.NET Topics
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Windows CardSpace
• Microsoft MVC
• AJAX
• LINQ
• Web Services & REST Frameworks
• Data Access
• OR Mapping
• Code Generation
• .NET 3.5
• Agile Development
• Benefits of Virtualization for Developers
• SOA, and What it Really Means
• Open Source Tools for .NET Developers
• Creating Usable Software
• Domain Specific Languages
• Dynamic Languages & the DLR
• Software Factories
• JSON vs. XML

Don’t forget, this is for developers. We’re looking for examples, code, experiences, tips & tricks, sample projects, etc. Less PowerPoint, and more code, examples, and discussion.

To learn more about the event please visit the website.

If you are interested in speaking at the Code Camp, please e-mail the information listed below, to:

Speakers AT FWCodeCamp.net

Please supply:

• Name
• Company
• Email
• Phone
• Track Level (basic, intermediate, advanced)
• Session name
• Session description

Based on the outstanding response we received last year, we anticipate (we hope) more speakers then we have slots for, and there are a lot of great speakers and topics. Please don’t be discouraged if we don’t select your proposed session(s). We’ll be choosing topics based upon community interest and flow. It may even be possible that we decide your session would be better off in a dedicated user group meeting, instead.

The session lengths will be a bit longer than last year’s hour-long sessions. That was the number one criticism last year — the sessions ended too quickly. We plan on three tracks, with each session lasting 1:15. So instead of the three tracks of 7 sessions we had last year, we’re probably looking at three tracks of 6 sessions, totaling 18 sessions. It’ll probably run from 8:00 AM until 6:00 PM.

Once your outline is received, we will review, choose, and provide scheduling for the selected sessions.

I was reviewing my list of album addictions since 1990, and although I’ve had a hunch that I’ve been leaning towards female vocalists over the past several years, I didn’t realize how strongly that leaning was until now. Here’s a female / male count comparison list, by year, color-coded for dramatic effect. Bands with a relatively even mix (or no vocals) are in the last column:

Interesting, eh? Well, I find it interesting. Baffling.

Since 1998, the totals are 38:15:4. 70% female.
Before 1998, the totals are 19:38:1. 34% female.

A complete turnaround. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this should be. Is it a statistical anomaly, or a significant pattern?

It may be anomaly, or shifting personal tastes. It appears that the typical range of female vs. male vocalists in people’s music collections are much lower than the inverse of these percentages. And it’s getting harder to find female singers on the charts.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been ignoring the charts and subconsciously giving female artists more of a chance, or if it’s because I’m ignoring male vocalists because I’m growing tired of them. Or are most current male artists sounding like post-grunge monotony or whiny adolescent punks?

Is it that female artists are just not getting their due? Are they just bubbling under? Is it that they’re not getting enough airplay, and the reason they’re so hard to find in music collections is because of a lack of marketing?

I’m not sure what it is, and I don’t have the answers yet. All I know is that I’m completely addicted to female artists lately, and find myself listening so often I begin to question if I’m missing out on the male-dominated bands.

Because music is the background of my life, I rarely consider it a foreground topic here on my blog. I wonder why that should be? A few times, I considered running some sort of music related blog, posting articles or reviews about some of the more obscure (or not so obscure) artists that I like, to make others aware of them. Some music touches me so deeply that I feel I should help promote them.

I’ve also struggled whether or not I should post articles about music here, or should I have a dedicated blog for different topics. But this is MarkFreedman.com, so I should feel free to post about all my interests. I talked about this in my first post of the year. But I’ve yet to go through with the idea of dedicating a topic for each day of the week. I originally thought that music would be my weekend topic. But sometimes I feel more passionate about music than anything else, so I’d like to not limit it to weekends.

But…

But I don’t think I’m good at writing music reviews. I’ve done several on Amazon.com, but I haven’t in a very long time, because I just don’t feel I use a musical vocabulary very well. Sometimes my album reviews unintentionally turn into hyperbole, because I often choose to write at the peak of my passion for them. I’m better off waiting a few months after my addiction to the album fades.

But I still have the issue of how to write a good review. I’d love to be able to write regularly, and to express my feelings about the music and the artists intelligently. So I started researching articles on how to write a review. (Don’t you hate it when people link every word in a sentence? Aren’t you glad I didn’t link the "a"?)

Until I finish digging through these articles, and feel comfortable enough to post what will likely be a pretty crappy first review, I want to throw out a list of the albums I became addicted to over the past several years. You know — those albums that become the only ones you listen to for a few weeks until you completely play them out? Maybe I’ll end up reviewing a few of these. You’ll recognize several, but there are many more obscure ones just below these which may make more interesting reviews one day. The years don’t necessarily reflect the years I became addicted. They’re the actual release years.

I find it fascinating that my favorite musical years seem to be the early to mid 90s. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, but although I love a lot of stuff from then and earlier, I definitely do not live in the past, and I’m not one of those who think good music ended at that time. That’s complete and utter bull, and I think it’s sad that so many people have missed out on great music quite simply because they’re stuck on just the music they grew up with. Great music is constantly being made, and continues to excite me.

This list is from 1990 on. Each year is sorted by artist (yeah, I sort by first name. So sue me. ). I’ll visit the earlier years in a follow-up article. My favorites of each year are in bold. You’ll notice certain patterns of styles I like. But some will throw you off. Some of these may surprise you. Some may shock you. What may surprise you more are some of the omissions. Good. Musical taste is completely subjective. And that’s one of the traits that make it one of the most amazing things in life.

• 2008 - Counting Crows - Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

• 2007 - Alizée - Psychedelices
• 2007 - Angels And Airwaves - I-Empire
• 2007 - Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
• 2007 - Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing
• 2007 - KT Tunstall - Drastic Fantastic
• 2007 - Tegan & Sara - The Con
• 2007 - Vanessa Carlton - Heroes And Thieves

• 2006 - Keane - Under The Iron Sea
• 2006 - Killers, The - Sam’s Town
• 2006 - Natasha St. Pier - Longueur d’Ondes
• 2006 - Nina Gordon - Bleeding Heart Graffiti
• 2006 - Pink - I’m Not Dead
• 2006 - Shiny Toy Guns - We Are Pilots

• 2005 - 30 Seconds to Mars - A Beautiful Lie
• 2005 - Coldplay - X&Y
• 2005 - Natalie Imbruglia - Counting Down The Days
• 2005 - t.A.T.u. - Dangerous And Moving
• 2005 - Veronicas, The - The Secret Life Of

• 2004 - Alanis Morissette - So Called Chaos
• 2004 - Keane - Hopes & Fears
• 2004 - Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway
• 2004 - Killers, The - Hot Fuss
• 2004 - Natasha St. Pier - L’Instant d’Apres
• 2004 - Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance
• 2004 - Tegan & Sara - So Jealous
• 2004 - U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

• 2003 - Alizee - Mes Courants Electriques
• 2003 - Dido - Life For Rent
• 2003 - Evanescence - Fallen
• 2003 - Fleetwood Mac - Say You Will
• 2003 - Julia Darling - Julia Darling
• 2003 - Michelle Branch - Hotel Paper
• 2003 - Nelly Furtado - Folklore
• 2003 - Tegan & Sara - If It Was You

• 2002 - Alanis Morissette - Under Rug Swept
• 2002 - Avril Lavigne - Let Go
• 2002 - Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head
• 2002 - Tori Amos - Scarlet’s Walk

• 2001 - Angela Ammons - Angela Ammons
• 2001 - Michelle Branch - The Spirit Room
• 2001 - Natalie Imbruglia - White Lillies Island

• 2000 - Alizee - Gourmandises
• 2000 - Chantal Kreviazuk - Colour And Moving Still
• 2000 - Chumbawamba - What You See Is What You Get
• 2000 - Nina Gordon - Tonight And The Rest Of My Life
• 2000 - Smashing Pumpkins, The - Machina- The Machines Of God
• 2000 - U2 - All That You Can’t Leave Behind

• 1999 - Danielle Brisebois - Portable Life
• 1999 - James - Millionaires
• 1999 - Julia Darling - Figure 8

• 1998 - Hole - Celebrity Skin
• 1998 - Kent - Isola
• 1998 - Madonna - Ray Of Light
• 1998 - Stretch Princess - Stretch Princess
• 1998 - Tim Janis - Flowers In October
• 1998 - Tori Amos - From The Choirgirl Hotel

• 1997 - Chantal Kreviazuk - Under These Rocks And Stones
• 1997 - Chumbawamba - Tubthumper
• 1997 - Cool For August - Grand World
• 1997 - Natalie Imbruglia - Left Of The Middle
• 1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer
• 1997 - Third Eye Blind - Third Eye Blind

• 1996 - Counting Crows - Recovering The Satellites
• 1996 - Guided By Voices - Under The Bushes Under The Stars
• 1996 - Matchbox Twenty - Yourself Or Someone Like You
• 1996 - Mazzy Star - Among My Swan
• 1996 - Sugarspoon - Sugarspoon
• 1996 - Superdrag - Regretfully Yours

• 1995 - Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill
• 1995 - Belly - King
• 1995 - Garbage - Garbage
• 1995 - Juliana Hatfield - Only Everything
• 1995 - Oasis - What’s The Story (Morning Glory)
• 1995 - Radiohead - The Bends

• 1994 - Bush - Sixteen Stone
• 1994 - Heather Nova - Oyster
• 1994 - Danielle Brisebois - Arrive All Over You
• 1994 - Lush - Split
• 1994 - Live - Throwing Copper
• 1994 - R.E.M. - Monster
• 1994 - Oasis - Definitely Maybe
• 1994 - Stiltskin - The Mind’s Eye
• 1994 - Sponge - Rotting Pinata
• 1994 - Tori Amos - Under The Pink
• 1994 - Weezer - Weezer

• 1993 - Belly - Star
• 1993 - Catherine Wheel - Chrome
• 1993 - Counting Crows - August And Everything After
• 1993 - Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
• 1993 - Dinosaur Jr. - Where You Been
• 1993 - Frank Black - Frank Black
• 1993 - Fury In The Slaughterhouse - Mono
• 1993 - Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See
• 1993 - Radiohead - Pablo Honey
• 1993 - Suede - Suede

• 1992 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time In Eden
• 1992 - Cure, The - Wish
• 1992 - Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience
• 1992 - Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes

• 1991 - Billy Bragg - Don’t Try This At Home
• 1991 - Ned’s Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder
• 1991 - R.E.M. - Out Of Time
• 1991 - Roxette - Joyride
• 1991 - Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
• 1991 - This Picture - A Violent Impression
• 1991 - Tribe - Abort
• 1991 - U2 - Achtung Baby
• 1991 - Wonder Stuff, The - Never Loved Elvis

• 1990 - Abandoned Pools - Humanistic
• 1990 - Cars, The - Heartbeat City
• 1990 - Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas
• 1990 - Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mining
• 1990 - Queensryche - Empire
• 1990 - Sinéad O’Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

Wow. 115 album addictions since 1990. And this year is a slow one. I’m not into some of these albums like I used to be. Remember — this is a list of albums I became addicted to at one time. Some I’ve just played out too much. Some I’ve lost the taste for. Also, I’m sure I’ll still be discovering others from these years that I wasn’t aware of, or I just haven’t given enough attention to, yet.

I also plan on putting together lists of some of my all time favorite songs. Magical songs. As you know all too well, some songs are the only great part of an otherwise crap album. But there are some amazing songs like that.

Save the music.

Some of you may be wondering what happened with our TDD and NUnit experimentation. Well, I had to switch my focus to Continuous Integration, while my development team continued on with NUnit. Despite our initial intention to just use the samples to learn from, they decided to experiment on an actual application of ours. I’ll discuss that and my experiences with CruiseControl.NET and Team City in the near future.

Picture a familiar scenario. Your young child asks one day…

"Why did you marry Mommy?"

"Because we love each other."

"But, why?"

"Because we grew to care for each other."

"Why?"

"We were attracted to each other…"

"Why?"

"…so we started to spend time together."

"But why not somebody else?"

"Because we felt that we were meant for each other."

"Why did you think that?"

"Because."

"Why?"

It may be annoying, but isn’t that how we always learned as kids? Sure, as kids we knew quickly that it bugged adults, but we kept asking for two reasons. 1) It got a rise out of grownups, and 2) we really did learn a lot by asking.

When Did Why Become Taboo?

Why did we stop? Did we start to feel uncomfortable asking the why question? Maybe we felt as though it intruded on the askee. As we matured, did we start to feel it was rude?

In this information age, we are constantly bombarded with more information in a week than our ancestors in their entire lives. We’re drowning in facts and figures, and overwhelmed with the available knowledge. But at the same time, it takes us too long to find the answers we’re looking for. Why is that? Are we not asking the right questions, or are we avoiding the why questions?

Sometimes we’re afraid to answer the why questions, because it may expose our lack of understanding. Once you can ask why , you’re on the path to learning.

"Why would I use a GridView instead of a Repeater?"

Doesn’t it feel safer to just lookup details about the GridView control and the Repeater control and just compare them ourselves? Don’t want to seem stupid for asking why we’d use one over the other, right?

Too Many What Questions

Too many books and tutorials start out with the "do this, then do that" without explaining why. "Why did you take this approach?"

The question that triggers the most thinking is the why question. Whys will make you wiser.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

If someone fails at something, they ask themselves all kinds of questions. "What did I do? How do I make this different next time?" But the question they’ll get the most out of is, "Why did I choose to do it that way? Why should I do it differently next time?" By asking the why , you learn a lot about the motivating factors that led towards the path of failure to begin with, so you can avoid that same path next time. Maybe your motivations were wrong. Maybe your decisions were based on faulty or incomplete information. Asking what will only lead to identifying what you did wrong. But without understanding the "why", there is no basis for change. You can easily repeat the same mistakes.

If you’re teaching someone, ask yourself why you’re teaching that way. By questioning yourself, you may discover a better way to explain things.

Arrogance — What Without Why

Just stating what to do can come off as arrogant. It’s like your parents telling you when you were younger, "do it because I said so" — like that actually motivated you to do it. It actually motivated you to do the opposite, just to discover the why , yourself. Why do they want you to do it, and what would happen if you didn’t? Why helps you fill in gaps of knowledge.

If you want someone to do something, explaining the why allows them to feel more apt to do it. In the worst case, at least maybe they could suggest a better option if they at least they know your motivation.

The Power of Why

Why is an extremely powerful question with potentially powerful answers. It teaches us to question everything. We live in a society where we take almost everything for granted. That’s because most people are afraid of asking why . The answers may challenge the way we’ve always approached things our whole lives. But at the same time, it opens up a whole new set of opportunities.

Why is the key to self-discovery. It helps you understand yourself better. At the same time, it’s the scariest question you could ask of yourself. It forces you to look into the mirror.

All questions are powerful, but if you start with why, the what, how, and when just fills in the blanks to resolve the why .

The Problems with Most Tests

This is also why multiple choice tests are a very poor learning tool. It tests memorization. They ask the what, not the why. Essay questions are the why questions. It forces us to think. It forces us to analyze, which leads to true learning. Unfortunately, the system encourages the simple (for teachers) multiple choice tests.

Curiosity

Why do you think the Imponderables series of books are so popular? Because most of the questions start out with why . Why is the most interesting question. Their answers satisfy our curiosity. Be aware that some what questions are just why questions in disguise, so don’t take it literally when I say that why questions are the most important. Related why disguises are "What is the reason for that? What is the meaning of that? How can you do that?" (all of them really mean, "Why did you do that?" ), etc.

When someone is reporting bad news, isn’t the first question that comes to mind the why question? "Why would somebody commit that crime? Why was that person in that neighborhood so late?" Why do they want to start a war?" One of the first things investigators look for is the motive for a crime. While the CSIs look for the what to help prove a crime was committed and by whom, when deciding guilt or the level of punishment, it all comes down to the why. He can be guilty if we could find a motivation he may have had. Once we have a motivation, we can tie him to the crime.

Why Forces You to Think

Why questions should make you pause to consider your answer, and not just shoot from the hip. "Why did that person cut me off?" should cause you to consider that maybe she just got an emergency phone call, or she’s rushing to the hospital, or she’s late for work, instead of just saying, "she’s a jerk." If nothing else, it could allow you to calm down and consider why someone did something rather than what they just did to you.

Why is the most fascinating question. Don’t fear it. It’s a powerful tool. Wield it.

From what I’ve been reading, it appears that using NUnit without the intention of TDD is like using Visual Studio without enabling Intellisense. Why bother?

I started by reading a few articles, such as Getting started with TDD , by Steve Smith. I also read a good one by Roy Osherove, and he states in his Test-driven development with NUnit - Introduction article, there are three bulletpoints for doing TDD:

1. Make a test that fails
2. Make it work
3. For every new feature, go to step 1

Now, that seems rather simple, but the hard part is figuring out what tests to write , and if you’re testing existing code, should you refactor it in order to enable proper testability.

The concept that seems to be hardest for people starting out in TDD to grasp is the whole concept of writing a test that fails even before attempting to write the code that implements the feature being tested. But if you think about it, it’s a pretty common iterative approach to things.

The first example in Roy’s article shows that you do this by trying to instantiate an object from an as-of-yet non-existent class. You can’t get much more basic than this. That’s an easy one to get to pass, and it’s a bit of a high getting that test to turn green. Now you feel like you’re on your way.

We’ve answered our first two questions from the prior article , and decided not to learn by incorporating tests into our existing systems, mainly due to the comment made in my previous article that we need to assume that current systems are "clean".

Due to scheduling conflicts, we also answered question 4 (should we have the team work together on a single system so we can all learn together, etc.). We’re experimenting on our own with samples that come with NUnit, plus our own small examples. As we work on future projects, we’ll build on that by generating tests for new code, and creating tests for modified code. We also recognize that refactoring will probably be in order to make existing code more testable, so we have to be mindful of including this into our estimates. Convincing management shouldn’t be too difficult, since they already feel the pain of too many bugs getting into QA, and are realizing the up-front time investment is worth it.

We’re still discussing question 3, the introduction of mocking. We’re leaning towards building our own mock objects on an as-needed basis at first, and we’ll look at third party mocking tools later on.

We’ve also taken a look at TestDriven.net , which provides some basic integration into Visual Studio. The best part of this tool that we’ve seen so far is the included nCover utility, which helps us to see what code we may have missed writing tests for. The jury is still out for us on the entire TestDriven.net tool, since nCover is available separately, but some people swear by the whole package.

Well, on with my best practices investigation for introducing NUnit and TDD…

Last night, I attended a terrific Speaker Idol event at the NYC .NET Developer’s Group at the Microsoft office in NYC. It’s one of the formats I mentioned in my post about user group meeting ideas.

This was the first user group meeting I’ve attended since I helped start a couple, and it was really nice to focus more on learning rather than coordinating. I had three main motivations for attending this meeting:

1. I wanted to finally attend a meeting rather than run one.
2. I wanted to see how a Speaker Idol event is run, in order to run one ourselves.
3. I wanted to see what it takes as a speaker, so perhaps I could try it myself one day.

I feel like I met these goals. First of all, attending these in NYC always gives me a rush of energy. I love going to the city, because it’s so amazingly alive and vibrant. It gives me the feeling of being able to accomplish anything. And there’s nothing like a warm summer night in the city that never sleeps.

And the second and third goals were accomplished with flying colors. Although I tried to make this a non-working event, I couldn’t help myself. I spent the entire night taking copious notes. And although this was the first Speaker Idol event I’ve ever attended, and it’s the only one I can base my observations on, I think it came off great. I think it can serve as a model for future events, so I put together a list of guidelines from this experience.

Although I haven’t presented at user groups yet, I’ve had similar experiences. My tips are a combination of those, of comments from last night’s judges, and of my observations from this and other user group meetings.

Great job done by Stephen Forte, Andrew Brust, Peter Laudati, Bill Zach, and all the speakers and judges!

Basic Rules

• Approximately five speakers should present (there were six last night).
• Each speaker gets 10 minutes to do their main presentation.
• There are four judges who are recognized leaders in the community, to give this legitimacy.
• During the presentations, the MC (Stephen Forte, for last night’s event) gives a silent two minute warning signal.
• The MC then gives a cut sign, signaling to the speaker that they have 20 seconds to wrap up.
• Once the presentation is complete, two minutes are alloted for a Q & A session with the audience.
• This is followed by a judge commenting session which lasts from three to five total minutes, rotating through the judges who comment on the presentation style (NOT the content). Sort of like American Idol. For each presenter, the comments are started by the next judge in rotation.
• At the end of the competition, bring all the participants to the front for a final round of applause, and announce the winners.
• There are three winners. At last night’s meeting, first place won an Xbox, second and third place won versions of Windows Vista.

Moderator Tips

A Speaker Idol event is similar to a mini code camp, where you’re pretty much going crazy trying to get equipment set up and tested. It was pretty hectic last night, with people downloading codecs, using borrowed laptops, etc. More about this in the Speaker Tips section, below.

• Have someone else handle the food. You’ll be too busy coordinating everything else with the speakers and judges, so try to get a sponsor to handle that. This was what the group did last night, and all it cost was about 10 minutes of a (deathly dull) sponsor presentation at the start of the session. Once you’ve seen one recruiter presentation, you’ve seen them all. They were sincere, but c’mon recruiters — use a little imagination. I don’t care how many clients and consultants you have. Tell me how you could help my career… anyway, that cries for another post…
• You may need to be the liaison between a speaker and the supplier of a solution if their presentation isn’t working on their own equipment. Set aside some time for this. It was a bit of a scramble last night, so I’d recommend requiring the speakers show up an hour before the session for setup and testing. Things will always get a little crazy, and a bit of luck is always involved, but this will increase the chances of success.
• I’m not sure how the presenter order was decided, but there’s a definite advantage that increases with each speaker. You could either have a random drawing, or use the reverse order of who volunteers to participate. Since most of us are so busy these days, I’d prefer a random selection.
• A quick 20 second intro of each speaker would eliminate the need for them to do more than a ten second "hello" at the beginning of their presentation. Most people are uncomfortable introducing themselves anyway, so it may keep them more at ease to start their presentation if they don’t have to concern themselves with that. They can just display a simple info slide at the start, while they introduce the topic.
• Clarify to the audience and speakers that for these types of presentations, especially with a dedicated Q & A period, almost all questions should be deflected for that period. The only time a question should be addressed during the body of the 10 minute presentation is if it’s critical for the direction of the rest of the presentation.

Speaker Tips

Do the three "P"s: Prepare, Practice, and Present. I’m sure I’ve heard that phrase before, but I’m not sure who to credit…

Preparation

• Tailor your presentation for 10 minutes (and I’d shoot for 8 to play it safe ).
• Be aware of whether your presentation is more of a discussion topic or a presentation, and prepare the style and flow based upon that. Make sure you structure the presentation to have a strong start, middle, and end. At the start, do the quick hit to get the audience engaged, and tell them what you’ll be talking about. Next, dive in and talk about it. Finally, quickly summarize with a couple of key conclusive points.
• Go for impact from the start, whether it’s through humor or a one liner that clearly sets the stage for the presentation.
• Slides should be minimal, and only used as cue cards for what you’re going to say.
• Since this is a 10 minute presentation, only pick a couple of key points to elaborate on — one positive and one negative, if possible.
• If your presentation calls for a comparison between two or more options, use visuals to compare. In a 10 minute window, you’ll need to get the point across quickly, so visuals work best for this.
• Use a large font size. The obvious reasons go without saying. But less obviously, it turns code into more of a quick-hitting visual.
• Don’t use blue font on a black background. It’s virtually impossible to read without straining. I’d actually recommend sticking with the default white background. A lot of developers seem to favor a black background these days, but although that may work well on your desktop, it doesn’t translate well to the large screen.
• Use very simple demos. If you can get your point across with a single visual, or just a tiny code snippet, then you can succeed in a 10 minute slot. Review your code several times as you prepare, stripping out everything you can, while still making it relevant. This is a common theme for writing, also.
• Plan the Q & A session, anticipating the types of questions you may get. You may need to balance leaving out a point or two in order to open up the possibility of a couple of good questions, but at the same time, don’t leave out critical info during the main presentation which will only leave your audience in a cliffhanger.

Presentation Style

• Project. You don’t want people straining to hear you, especially when you only have 10 minutes to state your case.
• Face the room. If you don’t face the room, your voice will just bounce off the wall behind you, and that ain’t gonna help with projecting.
• Rotate facing each side of the audience. This will help engage the entire audience.
• Don’t read directly from the slides, or repeat them word for word as if memorized. This becomes very robotic.
• Setting the slide show on automatic timer may be a novel way to keep you focused on your flow and time constraints, but it could be a distraction if you have to keep stepping back to a previous slide.
• If you’re natural at it, inject humor, especially at the start. It helps build rapport. Jabs at users are always good for a laugh in front of tech groups. But if it isn’t your normal modus operandi, don’t force it, because it will be obvious that it’s being used as a gimmick.
• Be aware of your audience. As I mentioned above, jokes about users are ok if your audience is a tech group, but don’t joke about topics and subjects that may offend your audience. If you feel any discomfort when about to tell a joke, trust your instinct and play it safe. Very little can take the air completely out of a presentation than a misguided attempt at humor.
• Show enthusiasm for your subject matter. If you can’t show enthusiasm for 10 minutes, you’re speaking on the wrong topic for you.
• When notified of the two minute warning, or 20 second wrap-up, don’t acknowledge it. It ruins the flow, and disengages your audience.
• Avoid silence, but don’t fill it with hemming and hawing ("um"s). Practice in front of mock audiences (or the mirror) is key. If you need to take a few moments to do something on the screen, at least explain what you’re doing while doing it.
• Don’t trail off or mumble when you speak. This is another variation of hemming and hawing, and people begin thinking they may be missing some important info.
• Be energetic. Watch someone like Stephen Forte when he speaks. He can make accounting sound exciting (sorry accountants ). We live in a fast moving, "MTV" world, and it takes a lot of animation to keep our attention.
• Stand in front of the podium. Stepping behind (for reading notes, etc.) only serves to disengage your audience. This is why you need to do the three Ps. You don’t want to sound as if you’re reading from a book. Show us you know your topic. You want to project credibility.
• Make eye contact with the audience. You can pick a handful of people (one from each side of the audience) to feel like you’re speaking one on one. I’ve heard a related recommendation for writing. Imagine that your audience is one person — a friend of yours.
• When things screw up, self deprecation goes a long way. The audience can relate to screw ups.
• Be honest. If you really don’t know the answer to something, say so. Otherwise, you risk the credibility of your entire presentation.

Presentation Content

• Make your intro of yourself and your company extremely short (if needed at all — see moderator tips, above). You can show a simple intro slide while you introduce the topic, in case people really want to know. Don’t be offended that we came here for the topic, and not necessarily for you.
• Explain why you’re presenting the topic, and what business reasons there are for it.
• Asking for a show of hands initiates interaction with the audience, but don’t leave it at that. Otherwise it just seems gimmicky.
• Use personal insight when discussing examples and experiences. This helps the audience identify with you and the topic you’re trying to convey. Otherwise, you may as well be reading facts out of a textbook.
• Never make comments or state opinions without following up with "why". "Why" is really the most important type of question you can answer. And the specific "what" and "how" always follow the "why".
• Have the demos open and ready BEFORE starting the presentation. Nothing leads to those empty spaces more than waiting for Visual Studio or PowerPoint and associated project files to open. You only have 10 minutes, and time always seems to run away quicker while waiting for these to open.
• Get to code as soon as possible. For a technical audience, getting to the meat is key for keeping us engaged.
• Switch to full screen mode when showing code (SHIFT-ALT-ENTER). Popping panels are a major distraction.
• Display your resources slide during your 20 second wrap-up and into the Q & A. The judges mentioned to leave it up there after speaking to it, but I wouldn’t even recommend speaking to it. It wastes valuable time, and your audience expects to see this at the end anyway, so it’s obvious.
• Use the regions feature in your code examples to make it easier to focus on small snippets.
• When discussing unknown technologies, give quick, one-line intros. It may help to show an analogy to technology your audience is familiar with. For example, EJB to .NET Enterprise Services. It may not be exact (like my example?), but it’ll give us the proper context.

After the Presentation

Many people attend these presentation for the educational value, in order to keep up with what’s happening in their field, and they make a significant time commitment to attend your presentation. Whatever your motivation for speaking, the reputation you earn is based upon more than your session. How you follow through also counts in a big way.

• For speakers of any type of presentation: please try to make yourself available, at least through email, for any follow-up questions attendees may have. Due to the nature of presentations, there are almost always outstanding questions that cannot necessarily be answered or even anticipated during the presentation, so you should always expect questions after the event.
• It’s also a good idea to provide the organizers of these events with presentation material and supplements to post on the organization’s website, to help with the follow-on.

I anticipated such an event to be a lot of fun, and it exceeded my expectations. I’m sure it was nerve wracking for the speakers and the moderators, but like my experience with the code camp, I’m sure it was well worth it. I’ll use this post as a guideline for when my group runs a similar event, and hopefully others will find this useful, even though I’m basing it upon limited personal experience. If you have anything to add or suggest, please comment.

I feel sort of guilty spending so much dedicated time on this educational task, because I’m so used to spending my days firefighting, managing, and troubleshooting. But this should be part of an Architect’s job, so I’m trying to ignore this uncalled for guilt emotion.

We have two main motivations for investigating unit testing. One is the desire to decrease the number of bugs found during the QA process. The other is our move towards continuous integration. I’d love to eventually get to TDD, but that’s a longer term goal.

Also, although Visual Studio 2008 has built-in testing in most SKUs (as opposed to what VS 2005 did), we decided to go with the de facto standard of NUnit. Besides, I understand there’s an integration option for VS, anyway.

The initial questions we’ll be looking to answer is the following:

1. Should we learn it by adding tests to existing systems?
2. Should we just add it to new projects or to enhancements / fixes for existing projects? On this episode of .NET Rocks!, one suggestion was to assume that existing systems in production are clean, so just create tests when needed.
3. Should we introduce mocking at this point? Or is it too much to tackle at the same time. But if not, how can we really be creating "unit" tests if we retain dependencies?
4. Should we have the team work together on a single system so we can all learn together, or should the team start by learning from the NUnit samples and reading the definitive book on the subject?

One of the first things I did was google for how others are approaching this problem. I found a lot of articles, so I have a bunch of reading ahead of me.

I’ll be posting links to those, and whatever else I learn, in the upcoming days.