AgileScotland July

Hi everyone,

Three things.  Two for you ... one for me.

1. I'm ready to take"bookings"  Adrian's Mowat's  Agile2008 session, on the 28th of July.  It  is a far more detailed and technical version of his Fit4Data session earlier this year.  

The tools and techniques needed to do Test Driven Development are extremely well documented for Object Oriented languages, but how do we do TDD data management and business intelligence projects using 4th generation ETL languages like Ab Initio?

In this talk, I will show you how to do TDD when transforming data is the sole aim of the project. The talk will be divided into two parts. First, the theory of TDD in data management applications and, second, the application of the practices using FIT4Data.

FIT4Data is a testing framework for data management applications built on the Java implementation of FIT. It allows developers to write FIT-like tests using the programming language of their choice. This is essential in the ETL domain where the key technical skills are UNIX scripting and the ETL language used on the project and most developers do not know Java (or any other OO language) so they are not equipped to write fixtures in the usual fashion. Furthermore, FIT4Data provides direct support for common ETL tasks like integrating with a UNIX shell environment and maintaining reusable data sets.

FIT4Data is available to download at it's home on Google Code -http://code.google.com/p/fit4data

In the first part, I explain how to break a typical set of customer requirements an business rules down into chunks suitable for TDD and then how to define testable scenarios around them. In the second part, I will show how to use FIT4Data to build and run the tests and build the application using TDD using practical examples.

Once again Napier University have kindly provided us with a meeting room in Central Edinburgh.

 If you are interested in this sessionthen please email me to book a place: Clarke.Ching@spiceUpIT.com.   Adrian really knows his stuff and not a lot of folk are working in this area.

2. I'd like to do August's meeting a little differently.  Rather than having 1 speaker presenting for 90 minutes or so  ... I'm looking for 2, 3 or 4 speakers/presenters/volunteers who can each run a 20, 30, or 40  minute session.  The session will be in late August, the topics are open ... you might do a demo, you might do an experience report, you might do how to, a why to, or a why not to... Interested?  Email me.

3.  I have a CV here for an experienced Agile (and more traditional) Project Manager who is looking for short-term contract  work.   Truth be told ... it's actually me - I'm nearly at the end of the first professional rewrite of my book (I'm currently adding the sex scenes in) and I'm nearly at the end of my savings.   If you know of anyone who is looking for a competent PM (Agile or otherwise), on a short-term contract basis, in Scotland, then please get in touch.  To be even more truthful ... I'm also a very versatile business/systems/data analyst too ... I'd appreciate any suggestions ...

Thanks!
Clarke