[Agile 2009] What’s in the conference for Java developers?

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

quintessenceAgile 2009 is not just for Agile coaches or project managers. About one in three participants qualify herself as a developer or a technical leader. And the program reflects that.

Amongst the activities that might interest fans of the Java:

Here are a few sessions with Java either as the main topic, or as the language used for demonstration:

For some other sessions, Java is not central, but will be at least mentioned:

Check out the entire program on conference site!

Update (06/08/2009): should have mentioned that the Cast Codeurs podcast pretty much have the same information in French.

Posted in agile2009, java | Comments Off on [Agile 2009] What’s in the conference for Java developers?

[Agile 2009] Presence of the CITCON community at the world’s premier Agile conference

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

CITCONers are everywhere! And nowhere more than at Agile 2009 Conference.

First, CITCON will be represented by Lydia Tripp and myself during the Freshers’ Faire at the Ice Breaker. Watch out for the CITCON easel pad… and world-famous t-shirts ;-)

CITCON alumni are now a big crowd (there are more than 750 mailing list members, and presumably many more attended the CITCON events). Many of them will present at the conference
Modern and traditional tools

It Takes Two To Tango Also, Lisa Crispin is producer of the Testing Stage. And don’t forget that many more CITCONers will be presenting on the OpenJam stage, too! I know I‘ll be.

Lastly, I will be appearing a one of the contestants in Programming with the Stars! This means that I’ll be paired up with a “star”, then we’ll try to show our mad programming skillz and outperform our competitors. This is incredibly exciting but also very intimidating. Although I consider myself a competent programmer, I am certainly not the best, and the participants at the conference are not exactly beginners. Scary!

Check out the conference blog for an account of how Programming with the Stars went last year.

Posted in agile2009, citcon | Comments Off on [Agile 2009] Presence of the CITCON community at the world’s premier Agile conference

[Agile 2009] Continuous Integration

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

This year, just like last year, Continuous Integration is proving to be a popular topic at Agile 2009.

Phew! That’s quite a mouthful. Interestingly, there are many more talks listed here than I managed to get last year (and there are half as many talks this year). One reason could be that I was much more thourough this year, reviewing most of the sessions details — last year, I simply searched for keywords in the submission system.

To be honest, seeing as many sessions related to CI is rather a disappointment. I mean, CI is not a difficult practice, and you would think that many participants to Agile 2009 would be familiar with me. Plus, most sessions are introductions rather than advanced talks.

I guess I will content myself with Tom Sulston’s sessions (“Cage Fight” & “How to be awesome”).

Posted in agile2009 | Comments Off on [Agile 2009] Continuous Integration

[Agile 2009] Hudson-related presentations

Posted on June 11, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

Going to Agile 2009? Cannot get enough Hudson? I have put together a list of sessions at the conference that will explicitly mention the best CI server eveeeer ;-):

OK, I do prefer Hudson (I am a contributor, after all). But I also watch the competition… err, I mean, like the other tools ;-) Here are other presentations I could find that mention competitors to Hudson:

Posted in hudson | Comments Off on [Agile 2009] Hudson-related presentations

XP France becomes Agile France, and other news from the French Agile community

Posted on June 3, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

XP France MeetingAs a member of XP France, I attended the annual meeting that took place during XP Day Paris last week.

Things have been moving for our little group.

Agile France

First and foremost, the group is renaming itself. It will thereafter be known as Agile France.

The extended French-speaking sphere

Second, its bylaws changed to reflect that the group is willing to help anyone in the extended French-speaking sphere (ie. French-speaking countries, non-French groups in countries where French is spoken, and French-speaking groups in countries where French is not an official language).

6-member strong board

Thirdly, a stronger team of people has been elected members of the board. We are jumping from 3 (Laurent Bossavit, Gabriel Le Van, Patrice Petit) to 6 (Raphaël Pierquin, Bernard Notarianni, Sandrine Olivencia, Antoine Contal, Laurent Bossavit). This boardis elected for 2 years.

What to think of all this?

  • in my view, the name change is excellent. I do believe that it will give more credibility to the organization. I remember talking to someone who thinks that the French Scrum User Group had been created in part because they felt that Scrum was not well represented by XP France — he repeated that this was clear to him, considering the name. I do not believe XP France is neglecting Scrum, but it is just as well that the name makes it clear.
  • specifiying that the association is willing to help the whole “extended French-speaking sphere” proved to be controversial. I personnally do not care much, but many thought that we can get into conflicts with other groups, such as Agile Québec. I’d personnally be very surprised if that becomes a problem.
  • though I agree that the new team looks strong and motivated, I am disappointed by the slightly heavy handed manner. We were basically told “oh, we are also going to change the board and, by the way, there is the only team you can get to vote for”. A simple email to the mailing list would have helped make things easier. I think. Also, a few people seemed to be disappointed, as they would have been candidates, given the chance.
  • I am also disappointed by the rather long mandate (2 years, down from 3 years in the original proposal). One argument was that 1 year is not enough to let the board members settle, and they would then be judged unfairly for their first year. Well, who’s saying that the members of the association would be so harsh as to kick them out if they can explain why they haven’t achieved much? Surely, a reasonable explanation is not too much to ask.

Anyway, at least it seems that the association is doing its best to be as relevant as possible. I think those changes are for the better.

See you next year and all the best to the new board! There is certainly work to do  for everyone.

Posted in xpday | Comments Off on XP France becomes Agile France, and other news from the French Agile community

“Is Scrum Evil?” Beyond our session at XP Day Paris

Posted on June 2, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

Is Scrum Evil?Our session “Is Scrum Evil?” at XP Day Paris this year went well. Attendance was good (50 people or so). One participant called it an “eye opener“. Two recorded the discussion (one of the records is available, in French, here; look for the podcast published on May 30th 2009). Nicolas Martignole even did a transcript of the session (in French — you might want to check out the Google translation).

I thought I would give more details here.

Our goals

We didn’t exactly manipulate the participants, but we certainly did not reveal, on purpose, what our goals were:

  • help dissenting voices come out of the closet — very few people are vocally criticizing Scrum today in France, and I have found no blogs. I wanted to show the pro-Scrum side that they do not have the final word.
  • let people vent — both pros and antis
  • make participants think — one later came to me and suggested that I should have offered “alternative solutions”. Well, I have none (though I do have some starting points, see below)Is Scrum Evil?

Alternative endings

We had prepare additional materials, in case the discussion died out. Fortunately, it was so lively that we couldnt use them at all. You’ll find all three of them below.

You are not alone

The first thing I wanted to highlight is that, though dissenting voices on Scrum (or Agile) are not currently heard in France, they do exist in the rest of the world:

Is Scrum Evil?

Scrum has Crossed The Chasm

There is a model that give hints to the current situation with Scrum. It is the Technology Adoption Life-Cycle, as amended by Geoffrey Moore in his seminal book “Crossing The Chasm“.

In short, it appears that many of the arguments against Scrum do not just mean that it is poorly explained, nor just that it is poorly understood, but rather that it is now being adopted by a large number of people. Or, to rephrase this, that it has been (consciously or not) packaged in order to be palatable to the mainstream. This implies trainings, books, consulting services, explanations, case studies, success stories. In short, packaging the approach just like a marketing team would do. That the people behind Scrum did it on purpose (as I believe) is beyond the point: the Agile approach that wins the hearts and minds of IT professionals everywhere is necessarily the one that comes with such as package, a whole product, in the words of Moore.

That is a reality that people that are blindly against Scrum must acknowledge.

ARXTA

Finally, I would like to point any aspiring Scrum-evil-ist to Brian Marick‘s writing on Agile roots. His argument is that “Agile” (and, I guess, the names of pretty much all Agile methodologies) is too easy a term to adopt. In other words, many people will look at the name, glance at the practices, and quickly come to the conclusion that “hey, this is exactly what we’ve been doing all along! Let’s avoid asking ourselves hard questions and let’s not change the way we work.” Which is, obviously, missing the whole point.

Brian has came up with a new name for the roots of Agile: “Artisanal Retro-Futurism, crossed with Team-Scale Anarcho-Syndicalism.” The name is cryptic (and even slightly repulsing) on purpose, so that people will have to ask, and will have to have a conversation.

Further reading

Check out

Posted in scrum, xpday | 6 Comments

[Agile 2009] Self-management: Pomodoro

Posted on May 21, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

I have become interested in Pomodoro at Agile 2008 in Toronto, so I thought it’d be nice to check out where in Agile 2009 you can get to hear about it.

Posted in agile2009 | 2 Comments

XP Day Paris, Agile 2009 and CITCON

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

I will be quite busy in 2009 with conferences.

Coming up is XP Day Paris, May 25th & 26th (next week!). No less than 3 sessions will be presented by yours truly:

  • Introduction to Retrospectives, with Laurent Bossavit
  • TDD Explained to Managers, with Stephane Labati, a former colleague from Valtech
  • Is Scrum Evil? a workshop with Guillaume Tardif — the session I’m most excited about!

I will be at the dinner on Monday evening as well; feel free to come and talk.

In August, I will be at Agile 2009 Conference in Chicago. This time, I will host a Coding Dojo on Legacy Code, with my partner in crime Guillaume.

Unfortunately, Is Scrum Evil?, a session I had proposed with Jeffrey Fredrick, has not been accepted. Fear not! We will be back with a revenge during the Open Jam part of the conference. I have hope many big names of the Agile world will join us. Promising session, trust me.

Next, September 18th will see CITCON Paris. This conference is dear to me — I have participated to all previous European CITCON events, and I am sure this will be one to remember. 3 months to go and the list of registrants is already closed!

As you may know, this is an Open Space event, so sessions are not known in advance and will be discovered during the opening session. Sounds scary? Wait until you suggest a session! ;-)

Other events of note this year will surely be Valtech Days 2009 and Devoxx. I have helped organize Valtech Days in 2007 and 2008; having left the company, it will not be the case this year, but, who knowns? I might still get to host a session.

As for Devoxx, I have never participated so far, but I heard so many good things that I really want to make the trip this year. We’ll see.

Well, this will be a busy year. Hopefully, I will have a few vacation days for non-techie stuff as well!

Posted in agile2009, citcon, xpday | Comments Off on XP Day Paris, Agile 2009 and CITCON

Maven: it ain’t too bad

Posted on May 6, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

(or Maven Doesn’t Suck™)

My colleague David recently wrote a controversial post on Maven and what is wrong with it. As his neighbour in a cramped office room, I feel compelled to give my own opinion about it. Which fits in a few words: it ain’t too bad.

Maven did get some things right

My argument is that Maven did help teams to Get Work Done, mostly by paying less attention to the build system. I enjoy playing around with build scripts and the like, so I’d rather dabble more with them, as I used to in the heydays of Ant. But I can’t justify it anymore. Maven has allowed me to concentrate on more value-adding work.

But, obviously, that does not make it an all-around Good Thing. It does have its flaws. Yes, the dependency system is not great (I believe this can be partly alleviated with proper unit testing). Yes, too many people use it in too many situations. In a word, the paradigms in Maven break when pushed too far.

Well, couldn’t the same be said about Ant, Java, Microsoft Windows, or even computers?

Leaky Abstractions

All these things are Leaky Abstractions. They try to make our life easier by hiding the complexity, while in truth there will always be a point where the abstraction breaks down. This happens pretty much any idea is made concrete by some implementation. There is an inevitable point or situation where is does not work anymore. That is part of life, and no other build system will ever perfectly.

So they ARE lying then!

Of course they are. Nobody ever sold anything by saying “well, our tool is reasonably good, but keep in mind that it does not work in many situations” (and even open-source projects need to sell themselves). No, they must always oversell a bit, if they want a fighting chance (check out the website of any software if you do not believe me). If that means that some users will later be disappointed, that’s a chance they are ready to take.

So, what can we do?

If you are so inclined, feel free to provide your own solution, as long as you make it available to the world. But be aware that, despite all its benefits, at some point someone will come and bash your little tool, for the right reasons.

Or, you can periodically survey the available tools and change every time one seems better. Or wait for an external consultant to come to your project, laugh at you and point you to this new thing that “everybody is using.” But, in the end, if you want to keep your sanity, always take claims with a large pinch of salt.

Posted in maven | 2 Comments

RIA Frameworks: the never-ending story (JavaCampParis4)

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

A few weeks ago saw an excellent evening at Google’s: JavaCampParis4. Quite a few people showed up, maybe partly out of curiosity for the famed Google offices (around 60 people in total, much more than previous editions). Google obliged by providing a big room with a breathtaking view on the Paris Opera House, the best buffet I’ve seen for a free event, as well as goodies including t-shirts and USB keys. Thanks, Google!

I find that these events are often more social than technical. There are a means for many to catch up with colleagues and friends. As for me, I was delighted to chat with Jean-Laurent, Grégory Paul, and many others, as well as meeting Nicolas Martignole for the first time (indeed I almost missed out on the excellent buffet).

Still, one thing I was really interested in, is Rich Internet Applications (RIA) Frameworks. I don’t know about you, but me, I have been hoping for a while that a clear leader would emerge. Probably because I have been spoiled by such an experience in the past (remember the good old days of Struts 1?). So I naturally suggested a session on RIA Frameworks which got a pretty large turn out.

Executive summary: there is no clear leader. However, Flex, GWT, jQuery emerge as the oligarchy dominating the area (.NET frameworks were not discussed, given the Java-leaning crowd).

Details

My original question was “What is the best RIA framework for professional development?” I didn’t want to discuss flashy new tools, only those that dominated the marketplace and that a company could capitalize on.

The frameworks mentioned by the participants were (in bold, those that are used the most by the people present in the session):

  • GWT: an obvious option for Java programmers, since it appears almost anything can be done in Java. Generating production-level pages can be slow. Many libraries available for it, either as native-Java libraries, or as wrappers for Javadoc libraries (to be avoided if possible, as they are harder to control and to use TDD-style)
  • jQuery: a library now frequently found on high-traffic sites, which has been officially approved by Microsoft
  • Flex: the only one to provide a complete solution. Someone was using it as the only solution for frequently displaying financial data.
  • scriptaculous
  • Yahoo! UI: good cross-browser support, but quite complex to use
  • Java FX: a person viewed it as an interesting option for mobile devices, but few are betting on it. Apparently, it does not require a browser plugin (apart from a recent version of Java)
  • Other tools mentioned: Google Visualization API and its GWT-GVis simplification layer (for generating charts), Prototype (Ajax & GUI JS library), qooxdoo (Ajax & GUI JS library), LightView / LightBox JS (both for specific image display, based apparently on Prototype), Dojo (Ajax & GUI JS library), phoneME (a technical library for Java on mobile platforms), Ext JS (yet another popular Ajax & GUI JS library with a GWT wrapper; proprietary. Apparently, the models are a bit complex). Even Silverlight was mentioned.

From all this transpire that there is no clear leader in the RIA space. The one that is the most likely to be around the longest is probably Flex. But, as mentioned, it is not an answer to all issues. Though well integrated with Java development, it is not as natural to use as, say, GWT. In fact, GWT seems to be the only real Java-friendly solution, an important argument given the hordes of Java developers with few Javascript skills. The issue, of course, is that GWT is not a complete solution: its graphics capabilities are more limited than the competing JS libraries. Its Ajax features are not the best either, especially if you design a very responsive application, such as a financial app.

So, here is my opinion:

  • personally, if you want to branch out from Java, then Flex sounds like an interesting way of doing things that look good
  • as a company, if you want, to bet on a new technology and can afford to train your staff, Flex is here to stay so is probably a safe bet
  • as a company, if you want to leverage your Java developers fast, then GWT is probably the way to go; in that case, you will also have to use additional Javascript libraries, starting with JQuery
Posted in java | 3 Comments

Why I use Twitter

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

"TWEET!" "Officer, This Lady is Loitering!"

I regularly mention Twitter to colleagues and friends. Most of the time, their reaction is “uh? I already do not have time to read blogs, why do you think I should waste time on Twitter as well?”

That reminds me of the time I was trying to tell my acquaintances about blogging or even (a long time ago) about this new thing called “the internet”. No, Twitter is not that useful. It is not going to save world hunger or give you a new job. But still, you should give it a shot. Here is my attempt to organize my thoughts a bit.

In theory, on Twitter, you are supposed to tell about what you are doing right now. For many, it means telling the world about the coffee they are drinking and other trivial things. This is not how I use it.

There are 3 types of people that I follow:

  • friends and colleagues: Twitter offers me a way to keep in touch with them even though I don’t meet them in person frequently or even call them. From these people, I enjoy both work-related tweets (“I got XYZ to work, it rocks!”) and mundane ones (“My little one is just one year old!”). Twitter is a low-friction way of talking with them, what Jeffrey Fredrick calls a replacement for a beer. Often, I miss what they say when I was not connected but that does not matter. Twitter is not a chat system. Sometimes, I respond to this type of people, or even DM them (ie. send a direct message). Anyway, as long as I get news occasionnally, I’m happy.
  • thought leaders and people I want to hear more: many figures in the domains I’m interested in now have Twitter accounts. Often, I already read their blogs, but that is not enough. Blogs are infrequent matters (less and less frequent as they embrace Twitter), and only well-formed thoughts appear on them. This is all good, but Twitter is where they talk about their day-to-day work. Sometimes, they would post half-formed thoughts (“what would happen if we stopped doing X and started doing Y instead?”). Sometimes, they would tell short things that do not deserve a full-fledged blog post (“Theory X is probably the most interesting thing I heard about this year”) or give links to page (“Check out this article — I recommend it”). Very occasionally, I would respond, or, more commonly, RT (re-tweet) their post so that my own followers are aware of things I find interesting. Like the others, the people I consider thought leaders also tell about their life. That is not so interesting, but unfortunately it is not easy to filter them out. That’s is the biggest drawback.
  • competitors: in a way similar to the friends and colleagues, I am interested to learn what they are working on. Obviously, I can only learn about what they are willing to tell. Still, it can be interesting. And over time some of them tend to the “friends & colleagues” category.

Over the months, I have built relationships with some people, learned the opinions of thought leaders on Fit, ask for help in selecting a mobile phone, followed Uncle Bob’s progress on Fitnesse/Slim, publicize various events that I was involved in… and arrange for a Twitter board to be displayed during a conference.

All these things can, in theory, be done via blogs or social networks sites. But the low friction of Twitter makes it so much more easy to use.

My advice is: get your own Twitter account and follow people you know. If you have things to tell that are not roo mundane, by all means, tell them. And do regularly clean up by stopping to follow posters that have a high signal/noise ratio.

Feel free to follow me, if I meet your own criteria for Twitter.

Posted in twitter | 3 Comments

Refactoring applied to features (or YAGNIAM – You Aren’t Gonna Need It… Any More)

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

Taking OffRefactoring code without modifying its external behavior is necessary to keep your code base manageable. That is nowadays a well-established fact.

However, it can only go so far to prevent your code base from swelling permanently. In theory, if your revenues keep growing, you can keep recruiting more people in your development team, and all will be good. Unforunately, that’s not usually how software works.

Like many other things in life, software goes through well-known phases: birth, growth, maturity, and decay. At some point, the costs of maintaining the software are just not justified anymore and the editor pulls the plug.

However, we can do a little better than that. If the project still has some life in it, it can be a better plan to reduce its complexity, in order to lower its maintainance costs and increase its life. In fact, there is no need to wait for the product to decrease in popularity. Housekeeping should be done as early as possible in the lifecycle. No need to maintain features that cost more than they pay.

My current customer has exactly this problem. Their project suffers from feature creep. Regression tests become more and more costly to maintain (it is actually planned to delete some of them regularly — though, of course, nobody really knows which ones we can afford to throw away).

I would call the activity I’m promoting “Feature Refactoring: the process of changing a computer program’s list of features (and corresponding code) without modifying revenues significantly” (balancing short- and long- term revenues). This means that it is OK to remove some features, as long as it is acceptable to your customer base, in terms of money to make in the long term. Basically, you want to avoid the classic pattern where 80% features that are little used or not used at all.

Note that I am not merely talking about features representing significant weight in terms of code, tests, or documentation. Rather, I want to target anything that costs money to maintain, understand (for new hires), market, etc.

How can we do this? Well, here are a few smells that can help

  • your client representative tell you about it — the easy scenario
  • you detect that few customers actually use your modules — monitoring tools can help you here
  • you find bugs in production… and few people actually complain about it — should this feature be there at all?
  • you upgrade your project… and nobody complains — if your features are popular, someone is bound to complain about any change
  • specs for a particular feature are not updated — features that do not evolve tend to rot
  • run workshops with customers — a interesting format for this is Speed Boat

My point is that there are even more potential benefits in term of code maintenance when removing features, compared to refactoring the code base (which is a good thing to do, too).

Refactor your features. See this one there in the corner? You Aren’t Going to Need It.

You’ll be happier.  And you will probably save money.

Posted in agile, misc | Comments Off on Refactoring applied to features (or YAGNIAM – You Aren’t Gonna Need It… Any More)

Is Fit Dead? A debate on Twitter

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

Influential members of the Agile community recently discussed the current state and history of Fit (the original thing, not Fitnesse or other Fit-inspired tools). The conversation took place on Twitter mostly on Tuesday, March 3rd and Wednesday, March 4th. Here is a transcript.

It was kicked off by an interview of Ward Cunningham and James Shore on Hanselminutes where Ward & James were asked whether Fit was dead.

Bob Martin first reacted on Twitter by pointing out that, at any rate, “FitNesse is thriving”, along with Slim, a new system that can be used by Fitnesse as an engine to run the test tables.

Michael Feathers replied that, in his view, Fit was more appropriate as a seed for other works: “Take it, grow it locally, and never commit back.” This seems confirmed by James Shore, a former leader of the Fit project (and a successor to Ward in that role): “Fit core was intentionally resistant to change […] from an organizational perspective”

Interestingly, James believes that both Fit and Fitnesse have “similar flaws, which could be solved by another approach”:

  • “Fit flaw #1: maintenance. HTML is hard to maintain and refactor.”
  • “Fit flaw #2: Customers. Customers don’t generate the documents, and that was the whole idea.”
  • “Fit flaw #3: Programmers. Fit loves domain models and Whole Value. Most programmers don’t. Impedance mismatch.”

This last point is actually seen as a benefit by J.B. Rainberger: “Similar to JUnit, Fit puts positive pressure on programmers. [That said] TDD informs design, but many use JUnit for testing. Fit informs feature design, but many use Fit for testing.” James agrees: “Fit drives the design of the domain layer just as TDD drives separation of concerns.”

JB & James both note that, regardless of the tool itself, they “continue to succeed collaborating with customers with Fit’s table format”, typically by “collaborating with examples on a whiteboard”.

Possibly, the biggest shortcoming (as stated by James & Ward during the interview, but also in twitter by Brian Marick: “I can’t offhand think of any product owner who wrote tests in any format”) is that the assumption that business people would write the tables was flawed. A view not shared by Keith Braithwaite “I’ve had actual users write tests in tables in excel with success”. JB, for one, prefers “Customers help write docs”, reformulated by Elisabeth Hendrickson as “Business stakeholders & implementation team collaborate on articulating expectations.”

Finally, several people including Willem van den Ende pointed to BDD and especially to Cucumber as a better implementation of the same ideas “Cucumber given/when/then steps flow naturally for me, FIT- style tables are optional, I add them later if needed.”

For more details see the following links:

Posted in fit | 5 Comments

Fitnesse now supports versioning to SCMs!

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

I really like how Fitnesse is doing these days (I even subscribed to the mailing list, which I had not considered last year, for example). Bob Martin is adding features every few weeks. It is great!

In the release he did a couple of days ago, he added 2 interesting things:

  • one is a format tool that helps giving a more readable view of your tables, in editing mode; unfortunately, your edit panel must be using a fixed-size font (which it is not the case by default on my system)
  • the most interesting addition, though, is the support of SCM tools to store wiki pages

There are two ways to configure a SCM tool.

The first is to specify it on the command line:

  java -DCM_SYSTEM=package.to.AParticularCmSystemIntegrationClass -jar fitnesse.jar

The second is to specify in a high-level page on your hierarchy of pages:

  !define CM_SYSTEM {com.project.fitnesse.OurSvnSystem me/my_password /cm/myRespository}

This one is interesting, because it allows you to have different configurations for different hierarchies of pages (typically one for each different projects, or even for different versions of the same project).

The bad news, though, is that the CM System Integration class in question is not provided by default, though I’m sure that in time there will be all sorts of appropriate integration classes provided with Fitnesse. But that’s not the case so far (except for an example made to connect to Git — not sure how generic it is). That said, it does seem quite easy to implement that class (you basically need to implement calls to the command line in Java).

You might want to download the Fitnesse release and check out the FitNesse.UserGuide.SourceCodeControl page. As often with Fitnesse, the website does not have the latest details.

Posted in fit | 1 Comment

Paris JUG One Year Anniversary

Posted on February 12, 2009 by Eric Lefevre-Ardant

JUG FrancophonesA fun evening last Tuesday at the Paris Java User Group. It was the first year anniversary, so special events were planned.

The highlight was the introduction of ALL French JUGs (all created shortly after Paris JUG was). More than a year ago, there was not a single JUG in France, there are now in total 9: Rennes, Nice, Bordeaux, Tours, Nancy/Metz, Toulouse, Lyon, Nantes, plus, of course Paris (and Luxembourg, Switzerland and Belgium, also represented that evening). There is little doubt that other major French cities will have their own JUG soon, especially Lille and Marseille.

The organizers gave a couple of interesting statistics:

  • the typical participant at Paris JUG is a Java architect more than 30 years old; this is in contrast to other local JUGs in France which have sometimes 50% students in the audience
  • the users mailing list (voluntary subscription only) has around 180 members
  • the announce mailing list (automatic subscription when registering to any evening) has more than 1100 members; however, only the organizers can post to it and only announcements of events organized by Paris JUG are made there
  • the number of people registering to a Paris JUG is reaching 220 (more than 200 since September); unfortunately, with 175 available seats, this means that they will have to limit the number of participants in the coming evenings
  • more than 1500 visitors / month to their website

Tombola Jazoon

There were also a few technical presentations, on subject such as Wicket, Java 7 and JOGL, but the most impressive one was for the version 3 (not currently available) of Parleys. Stephan Janssen did an impressive job, first with clients programmed in Flex, Java FX and GWT, second with an almost magic movie editor that matched videos of presentations with slides automatically. That could solve quite a few problems we have with our own conferences at Valtech. Extremely good stuff, as Londoners would say!

For more about this evening at Paris JUG, check out:

Posted in conferences, java | Comments Off on Paris JUG One Year Anniversary