DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by sqazone

Create a video player in Silverlight 2 - Part 2

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:31:02 GMT

Part 2 of creating a video player in Silverlight.

Creating an Agile Environment

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:28:34 GMT

Migrating to Agile is more than changing your process. It also requires a change in culture. For most companies changing culture is the most difficult part. I believe this is true for several reasons. These issues should be addressed in two ways. First, you want to address the culture needs of each group head on. We will lay out a game plan for obtaining support from line management, the team, the individual and executive management.

TDD: The Road so Far

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:16:02 GMT

Rob talks about traveling the TDD road, shares a few lessons learned, and points out a couple of pros and cons he's discovered along the way.

Create a video player Silverlight 2 - Part 1

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:46:02 GMT

"Creating a video player in Silverlight is pretty simple. The MediaElement does all the heavy lifting, all you need to do is wire up a UI and you have a basic Video player. Here is a tutorial on how to create a simple video player from scratch using Silverlight 2."

How to avoid getting lost in translation

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:50:10 GMT

I have stumbled upon a few very interesting conclusions about the language and how important it is to choose good metaphors and names in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach. Although the book deals with something completely unrelated to software projects, it contains some very interesting ideas that we can apply to improve software development.

Top 5 Attributes of Highly Effective Programmers

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:46:02 GMT

Just an essential article. I would like to add "discipline" to this list.

Exploratory Testing: Finding the Music of Software Investigation

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:07:58 GMT

As a software testing consultant and musician, I meet a lot of skilled testers who do amazing work. Through experience and a lot of trial and error, they have developed skills they can't easily explain. Unfortunately, with software testing, there aren't as many obvious avenues for skill development as there are for musicians. Many software testers don't realize that there are learnable exploratory testing skills they can develop to help them become even more valuable to software development teams.

Expectation Based Testing with Mocks

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:01:02 GMT

An example and walk-through showing how to use mocks, Rhino.Mocks that is, to do expectation based testing... with a little BDD flavor thrown in just for fun.

So Much for the Optimization

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:16:02 GMT

Don't optimize prematurely your code, here's why.

Why TDD Not Practiced?

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:07:55 GMT

A look at reasons why TDD is not practiced.

A "Bones" Approach for Dead Projects

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:11:19 GMT

Once they are finished, often the best thing that will happen is a little celebration for the project team. Nobody will formally look back at a project to understand what went well or wrong and why those things happen, so that this project can actually rest in peace and lessons learned could be used for the next projects. There is however an activity to analyze project after their completion. It is called "post mortem" analysis or "retrospective" in the agile approach and here are some resources on how to do it.

Practical Experience in Automated Testing

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:26:29 GMT

This article presents a practical perspective on test automation and the various points to consider for achieving positive results in this area.

Test-Driven Development for Embedded Software

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 11:34:09 GMT

Despite a prevalent industry perception to the contrary, the agile practices of Test-Driven Development and Continuous Integration can be successfully applied to embedded software. We present here a holistic set of practices, platform independent tools, and a new design pattern (Model Conductor Hardware - MCH) that together produce: good design from tests programmed first, logic decoupled from hardware, and systems testable under automation. Ultimately, this approach yields an order of magnitude or more reduction in software flaws, predictable progress, and measurable velocity for data-driven project management. We use the approach discussed herein for real-world production systems and have included a full C-based sample project to illustrate it.

43 Exceptionally Useful AJAX Applications

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:46:03 GMT

Usability on websites is exploding right now. AJAX has enabled web developers everywhere to add functionality to their sites like never before. They've gathered 43 extremely useful AJAX applications for use on any website.

More than 100 Web 2.0 Online Generators

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:31:02 GMT

Here the list of online generators specifically for web 2.0 design: enjoy it!

Lean Configuration Management - Evolving the CM Discipline Through the

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:30:39 GMT

The increasing popularity of agile development methods is putting new demands on the traditional CM discipline. A working CM environment is essential for the rapid nature of agile development methods, but the CM process and the CM role has to be adapted to the present evolution of software development methods as well as automated tools. This article discusses lean principles and agile values within a CM scope and also introduces a method to classify the CM discipline in relation to development method and level of tool automation.

Continuous Integration: The Cornerstone of a Great Shop

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:16:02 GMT

This article shows how continuous integration can help to keep projects on track with a rapid feedback on the product status.