Grigori Melnik: Thoughts on Agile Software Engineering and Beyond : events

Enterprise Library 5.0 preview video posted

gmelnik — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:46:00 GMT

The talk Bob and I gave at the p&p Redmond summit in October is now available for online viewing. In it we discuss and demo (use time breakpoints to fast forward to a specific topic):

the overall theme of the release – simplicity & improved user experience (00:00)
data accessors (06:25)
higher performing logging (18:00)
fluent configuration interface (20:32)
config tool facelift and making it easier to plug in custom extensions to the config tool (30:18) –
honouring validation attributes between VAB and System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations (41:08)
tackling external and internal complexity with architectural refactoring and resulting testability improvements (42:16)
container independence (43:34)

Enjoy! If you like what you see and want to play with EntLib5.0, download the most recent bits from entlib.codeplex.com and provide your feedback.

Enterprise Library v5 preview at the p&p Summit 2009

Grigori at PDC

gmelnik — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:54:22 GMT

I’ll be at PDC2009 in LA next week. I’ll be happy to meet with EntLib and Unity users as well as critics, to discuss new features of EntLib 5.0, preview the new config experience and also solicit suggestions for post v5 work.

If you’d like to discuss acceptance testing and test automation strategies, I’d be interested in that too.

Look for me at the p&p booth Mon-Thu or ping me to set specific time to meet.

See you there.

p&p Summit 2009: What’s coming in Enterprise Library 5.0

gmelnik — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:51:06 GMT

Yesterday Bob Brumfield and I gave a talk on EntLib5.0 at p&p summit in Redmond . We’ve discussed the underlying architectural refactoring and previewed the following improvements:

Data accessors that will help you easily consume sproc results when using Data Access Application Block – instead of a data reader you get an IEnumerable back and can do all LINQ magic on it.
Logging Block performance improvements due to optimizations using predefined timestamp patterns mapped to high-speed formatting implementations and new “local” tokens for context info (e.g. localMachine, localAppDomain) that we cache.
Improved config experience epic which included:

programmatic config support via fluent interface
face lift of the config tool to make it more intuitive (especially when displaying relationships), simpler (by removing a lot of design time dlls) and better extensible (by simplifying the way config for custom handlers/blocks) can be plugged into the config tool)

Honouring validation attributes in System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations
Getting EntLib objects in various ways :

via a single point of entry EnterpriseLibraryContainer.Current
or injected by the container

We also demoed container independency story which allows to switch the underlying container. Out of the box, you get EntLib shipped with Unity, but if you prefer to use another DI container, now you can easily switch over.

We are planning several webcasts to share these demos.

In the meantime, feel free to check out our recent bits here and provide feedback.

Showcasing patterns & practices’ goodness

gmelnik — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:54:00 GMT

These are some of the events I’ll be presenting at in the next couple of months:

Patterns & Practices Conference Ukraine, Kiev, Sep 16, 2009 (www.pnp.in.ua)
Patterns & Practices Summit Russia, Moscow, Sep 22, 2009 (www.pnpsummit.ru)
Patterns & Practices Summit Redmond, Oct 12-16, 2009 (www.pnpsummit.com)
TechEd EMEA, Berlin, Nov 9-13, 2009 (www.msteched.com)

Whether you are using Enterprise Library or any other p&p asset, I’d be happy to chat with you about your experience. Look forward to it!

Agile PreCon at PDC 2008

gmelnik — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:38:57 GMT

Mary Poppendieck and I are set to run a pre-conference workshop on Agile Perspectives: Industry and Microsoft.

In it, we will provide our observations on what works, what doesn’t in the world of agile, and why (we call this segment of the workshop “Reality of agile”). The objective is to provide pragmatic advice, recommendations and actions that you could use tomorrow to improve the way your teams produce software.

Mary, the author of popular Lean Software Development and Implementing Lean books, will provide her lean perspective from many years in the industry (if you want to find out more about Mary, check out this really good interview that Scott Hanselman took with both Mary and Tom Poppendieck, in which they challenge the notion of success in software industry). In turn, I am going to share my experience from several projects at Microsoft patterns & practices. Several other colleagues from Microsoft will join our panel at the end of the day to debate hot issues of agility. The floor will be open to audience participation. Mary and I identified several hot issues to bring up. However, it would be really good to know what kind of stuff you’d prefer us to touch upon. Please post your At-Issue suggestions in response to this post or simply email me. Thanks and see you in LA!

Webcasts demos

gmelnik — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:35:00 GMT

The demo from the Enterprise Library 4.0 webcast we did yesterday is posted on Codeplex.

Now can also find the demos from the webcasts on Unity here.

Webcasts on EntLib4 and Unity

gmelnik — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:35:00 GMT

We are planning three webcasts on EntLib4 and Unity. Pencil in the tentative dates:

§ Taking advantage of Microsoft Enterprise Library 4.0 for Visual Studio 2008 (Level 200 – Intro)

July 10, 13:00-14:30pm Pacific

§ Introduction to dependency injection with Unity (Level 200 – Intro)

July 11, 12:00-13:00 Pacific

§ Extending the Unity dependency injection container (Level 400 – Advanced)

July 24, 13:00-14:30 Pacific

We’ll be doing lots of demos of the goodness in EntLib and Unity. I’ll post the links to the registration site as soon as they become available on MS Events.

Cheers,

Grigori

Upcoming conferences - where I'll be (May - Oct 2008)

gmelnik — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:45:00 GMT

Tech-Ed 2008 Developers, June 2-6, Orlando, FL. I’ll be giving a talk on the Enterprise Library (DVP02-TLC). I’ll be also hanging out in the exhibition areas (mainly, Process & Project Management (DVP- VSTS 2008)).
CAST 2008 , July 14-17, Toronto, ON. I look forward to good interaction with testing experts and thought leaders from around the world.
Microsoft Product Fair, July 22-23, Redmond, WA.
TechReady7, July 28-Aug 1, Seattle, WA. I’ll do a couple of talks on the Enterprise Library and agility.
Agile 2008, Aug 4-8, Toronto, ON – the major world conference on agile software engineering. Mary Poppendieck and I are program-charing the conference.
STARWest 2008, Sep 29- Oct 3, Anaheim, CA. Jon Bach and I will give a talk on Acceptable Acceptance Testing, telling the tale of our team producing the guide on acceptance testing and dogfooding our own recommendations.
PNSQC2008, Oct 13-15, Portland, OR. We have a paper "Acceptance Testing: a love story in two acts". No Shakesperian-level drama, but some exciting stuff for sure.
PDC 2008, Oct 26-30, Los Angeles, CA. Together with Mary Poppendieck and other colleagues from p&p, we’ll be presenting the Agile Perspectives pre-conference event.

If you are planning on attending any of these conferences, please come by and say hello. I would love to hear your stories of using or reasons for not using the Enterprise Library, Unity, other p&p assets. I would also be glad to chat with you about our upcoming guidance on Acceptance Test Engineering and hear your experiences, lessons learnt, and suggestions.

Also, I talk to user groups regularly. If you are from the city I am visiting (or nearby) and would like me to give a talk to your user group (agile, .NET, software testing), feel free to ping me.

Unity Extensibility Workshop

gmelnik — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:13:00 GMT

Microsoft Main Campus (Building 99)
February 18-19, 2008
Redmond, WA

Description

Unity is Microsoft’s lightweight, extensible dependency injection container.

Microsoft patterns & practices will host Unity Extensibility Workshop to walk the participants through the design of Unity container and its extensibility model. You will become familiar with all aspects of the container infrastructure and container extensions: from using existing extensions to building your own. A special attention will be given to the integration of Unity with Enterprise Library 4.0 and the refactored application blocks. Because the workshop will be hosted by the Enterprise Library team, you will also have the opportunity to ask questions and potentially influence the future of the Enterprise Library.

Purpose

− Transfer knowledge from Microsoft patterns & practices experts and authors of Unity/EntLib4.0 to attendees about building container extensions and integrating them with Unity;

− Transfer knowledge from the attendees to Microsoft experts about the common extensions that are useful in their application contexts;

− Advance hands-on exercises for others in the software engineering community to learn from.

Prerequisites

− This is an advanced, participatory workshop. It is highly recommended you have a working knowledge of programming in the DI style. There will be some introductory content around the technologies, but there will be a heavy focus on writing C# code.

− You must have prior experience using one of the existing DI containers, such as Spring.NET, Castle/Windsor, Structure Map etc.

− It is recommended you read “Deconstructing ObjectBuilder” posts by Chris Tavares.

− You must bring a laptop and a VPC will be provided. If you can have Microsoft Virtual PC installed ahead of time, it will save you from having to install it after you arrive. This will prevent you from having any other system requirements on the machine.

− If you plan on attending, please think of at least one extension idea you would like to introduce to Unity. One of the main reasons we’re hosting this workshop is to discover and share particularly valuable and important extensions (so we can make the underlying extensibility mechanism as easy as possible). We will ask you to define your scenarios at some point while you are here.

Cost

− There is no registration fee for the workshop.

− Attendees are responsible for making and paying for their own travel to and from Bldg 99 in Redmond, WA.

− Attendees are responsible for their lodging accommodations during the workshop. Suggestions can be provided after registering.

− Breakfast and lunch will be provided on all 2 days and a dinner event will be provided on Tuesday night (Feb 19).

Registering

We apologize for the short notice, but please send your info in by Feb 15. Attendance is limited to 25 people and registrations are based on the first come-first serve basis, so please RSVP by sending a note to Grigori Melnik as soon as possible. In the email, please provide the following information about each attendee:

− Full name

− Company name

− Software engineering background

− Types of DI containers used

− Email address (required for internet access)

− If a vegetarian lunch is required

Feel free to contact me for any other questions.

Agile 2008 Conference - new model, many changes - part 1

gmelnik — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:21:00 GMT

Catching up on blogging about Agile 2008 Conference, for which I am a Program Chair. Luckily, I am part of an amazing squad of 40+ enthusiasts and their teams, led by the fearless trio: Rachel Davies (who is the General Chair), Mary Poppendieck (who shares Program Chair’s responsibilities) and yours truly.

This year we are experimenting with a new model based on a music festival metaphor. I’ll tell you how we are adopting it in a minute. But firstly let me explain why we needed a change. After all, the conference has been very successful in the past (selling off several months in advance for the past three years). So, why would we change a model that works? Well, over the years due to increasing popularity of agile methods, we rapidly grew from several hundred attendees to over a thousand and realized that the current model cannot scale any further. Last year in Washington, DC, with several dozens of simultaneous sessions in various places, it was hard not only to find the room but to simply navigate the program and decide where to go. We believe the new model will address these issues, allow the conference to grow (we expect 1,600 delegates) and even make it more community-driven.

So, I’ve mentioned the music festival metaphor earlier. What festivals do I have in mind? Blue Skies Festival in Clarendon, Ontario, Canada is one. It grew up from a small beginning and now attracts thousands of people. Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts in the UK is another example with tens of thousands of performers and organizers entertaining hundreds of thousands of attendees (I believe it is the biggest greenfield music festival in the world!) Both started back in 1970s and still running and selling off annually. Only about one third of those who would like to come actually get tickets. How did these festivals manage to grow so big and yet remain so successful for such a long time?

It occurred to us it’s the multiple stage metaphor with individual producers and production crews focusing on their own stage (e.g. Acoustic Tent, Dance Village, JazzWorld etc.) that helps these events grow. Importantly, these producers have a high degree of autonomy (in recruiting and selecting performers, scheduling appearances etc.)

Just like those festivals, the stages within our conference program are designed and organized by experts (acting as stage producers) who are truly passionate about their particular areas. Each stage will have a feel of a smaller, focused mini-conference whilst providing the conference attendee with a wide choice of stages to choose from:

§ Agile and Organizational Culture

§ Breaking Acts

§ Chansons Françaises

§ Committing to Quality

§ Customers and Business Value

§ Designing, Testing, and Thinking with Examples

§ Developer Jam

§ Distributed Agile

§ Leadership and Teams

§ Learning and Education

§ Live Aid

§ Main Stage

§ Open Jam

§ Questioning Agile

§ Research

§ Tools for Agility

§ User Experience

You can find more info on stages here.

This makes a lot of sense. In the past, the conference was organized around the session types (tutorials, workshops, experience reports etc.). Individual committees were formed to review and select sessions for the program. Instead of organizing the conference around the session types we are organizing it around the topics (the content types), which is more aligned with the agile principles. Focus on the value delivered to the customer. Focus on substance in the first place, not form. After all, our customers (attendees) care less about the session type and more about the content presented and discussed. We want to have a good and broad coverage of topics and also avoid redundancy. The producers are in a better position to balance the program of their stage.

(To be continued...)