(Mar 5)
I'm lifting Catherine Louis' blog entry about this upcoming event. Please forward this to your managers and execs. It should be a great evening.
Jared and I are hosting a benefit dinner for Citcon on March 29th in the RTP area for a limited number of RTP executives. Our guest of honor will be Dr. Jeff Sutherland, the co-inventor of Scrum (a leading Agile Software Development methodology). Dr. Sutherland will be seated at the dinner table where you will have an unparalleled opportunity to discuss Agile with one of the signatories of the Agile Manifesto, co-author of Scrum - the leading Agile software method used today.
Agile methodologies are being used across the software industry to improve team's ability to ship solid software. Take this opportunity to learn more about Scrum and the Agile movement, and how your company can take advantage of this game-changing paradigm shift. Whether you're wondering "What is agile?" or "How can we accelerate our agile transition?", this is a golden opportunity to have your questions answered by one of the leaders in the field.
The event is a benefit dinner in support of the Citcon conference: For the first time ever, the North American Continuous Integration and Testing Conference is coming to Raleigh. Citicon brings internationally recognized experts together and provides your teams with complete access.
For a requested donation of $500 towards Citcon, you will receive:
- 1 hour special consulting on Continuous Integration from Continuous Integration experts (who are hosting the Citcon event) for two of your staff members during the Citcon event April 15.
- A confirmed seat at the dinner table for 3/29 with Dr. Jeff Sutherland, other leading RTP executives and Continuous Integration expert Jared Richardson.
The event details:
-Date/Time: 6:30pm - 9pm on 3/29/10
-Please email Catherine Louis with your RSVP, and secure your spot at the dinner table with Dr. Sutherland by clicking the PayPal link with proceeds going directly to Citcon:
Thank you very much, if you have any questions about the event, please contact Catherine Louis +1.919.244.1888 or Citcon prime Jared Richardson, +1.919.760.7085.
About Citcon:
CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, is a world-wide series of events for developer-testers, tester-developers,
and anyone else with an interest in Continuous Integration and the type of Testing that goes along with it.
CITCON provides a forum to connect with other people on topics you care about, to learn from their experience and share your own. Past topics include:
What is Continuous Integration (CI)?
What CI tools are there?
What is the best language for writing tests?
What is the future of build languages?
What is Behavior Driven Development and Test-Driven Development?
How can we overcome barriers to CI Adoption?
About Dr. Jeff Sutherland:
Dr. Sutherland is the creator of Scrum, and was a signer of the Agile Manifesto, which marked the start of the Agile movement. He began his career as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force, and went on to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Medical School. Dr. Sutherland has served as VP of Engineering or CTO at eleven software companies, managing the last seven entirely using Scrum, and achieved industry-leading, hyper-productive results. Dr. Sutherland is the Chairman of the Scrum Training Institute, and Senior Advisor to OpenView Venture Partners where he is Agile coach for portfolio companies.
Please proceed to the PayPal link to confirm your attendance.
Category: Agile
(Mar 4)
Time is running out for you to get involved with Agile Coach Camp 2010. Whether you're from another part of the world, or local to North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, this will be a great opportunity. Come together with experts from all over and have an open forum to ask your burning questions.
The cost? You've got to be prepared to contribute! The price of admission is a discussion topic. It's an open spaces conference, so everyone gathers in the morning and reviews the topics. If there's interest, you get to present. It's just that simple, but open space conferences are much more informal than traditional conferences. There's a lot more give and take with the audience. If you haven't shared before, don't worry... this is the perfect venue.
Who should attend? Anyone trying to champion or guide agile techniques. You might be an "agile coach", developer, or manager, but if you're trying to move your team, company, and yourself forward, I'd strongly suggest you make this event.
Agile Coach Camp 2010
Position Papers
Delivering value to those who deliver value.
I hope to see you there! March 19-21, 2010
btw, we've still got some space for local volunteers and corporate sponsors.
Category: Agile
(Feb 12)
North Carolina's Research Triangle Park has a number of great local learning opportunities and conferences coming up and I wanted to help get the word out.
Citicon: Continuous Integration and Testing Conference
link
April 16th and 17th
They require a $20 deposit and it’s refunded if you attend. Otherwise it's a donation. :) If you want to take your CI or testing efforts to the next level, you shouldn't miss this one. You'll be spending time with some world-class talent in this space. We're very lucky to have this one in RTP!
Agile Coach Camp
link
March 19th-20th
Also free, but to attend you must propose a topic and be prepared to share. Again, this should be world-class. You'll be rubbing shoulders with some of the thought leaders in this space. Skipping this one should be a crime for anyone in this region who's learning how to be an Agile Coach.
Developer Day
link
Really top notch content for a low price ($50) This is a great place to get new ideas.
Scrum Training
Jeff Sutherland (co-inventor of Scrum) is teaching a local Scrum class with (another local guru) Catherine Louis
link
This one’s not cheap, but should be really good.
I have a feeling I’ve forgotten something… If I have, I’ll update it later.
Category: Agile
(Dec 8)
I found myself needing to run Selenium tests from Java against a Selenium server running on a port other than the default 4444. Every example on the web showed me almost the right way to configure this from within JUnit... so now that I've got it working, I'm documenting it. :)
public void setUp() throws Exception {
// this is the normal way
// setUp(server_url, "*chrome");
// this is the alternate port way
selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 11111, "*firefox", server_url );
selenium.start();
}
Hopefully this will save a few others some time!
Free Bonus Tip
Here's how to start and stop the Selenium server from an Ant script.
<target name="start_server" description="Starts a Selenium Server in the background">
<java jar="${lib}/selenium-server.jar" fork="true" spawn="true"/>
</target>
<target name="stop_server" description="Stops your local Selenium Server">
<get taskname="selenium-shutdown"
src="http://localhost:4444/selenium-server/driver/?cmd=shutDown"
dest="result.txt"
ignoreerrors="true" />
</target>
Update
The above Ant script worked for me on Linux, but seems to not work on Windows. (sigh).
Change the arg from value= to line= and it's now working on Windows.
<java jar="${lib}/selenium-server.jar" fork="true" spawn="true" >
<arg line="-port 4444"/>
</java>
I've also found this useful.
<waitfor maxwait="30" maxwaitunit="second">
<socket server="localhost" port="${selenium.server.port}"/>
</waitfor>
Category: Java
(Nov 25)
I've been meaning to write about my new job for a while, but life has been busy. I'm not working with NFJS One, but instead working for a software shop here in North Carolina called Logos Technologies. For a variety of reasons, this year really burned me out, and travel was a huge part of that, so I did some shopping around. I talked to some shops about jobs with some travel, but local was where I wanted to be, and it's where I am.
I know many people who are adamant about being independent and not working at a day job, but if you know me well, you know I'm pretty flexible... after writing Ship It! and hitting the conference circuit pretty hard, I'm ready to step back, sleep in my own bed at night, and spend the evening watching TV with my two daughters. My commute is 15 to 20 minutes when traffic is bad, and under 10 if I catch all the lights just right. You can keep your hotel food and frequent flier miles. I'll take my old couch any day of the week.
Looking back, Will Gwaltney started working on Ship It! in (I'm approximating) in 2002 or so. The starting point was a series of articles I'd written on my home wiki. I was sure we'd have it done in under a month! (ha!) A year and half later, we had a book that actually sold a few copies. It's now in German, Indian Reprint, Japanese, Korean, Polish, and Russian. I still meet people who have no idea who I am, but look shocked and excited when they realize that I'm "that Ship It guy!"
Then I discovered the No Fluff conference tour. I did two cities the first year (Atlanta and DC). My first talk started so badly! I arrived at the conference center during the break before my talk was to start. I opened my suite case in the lobby behind a post so the attendees wouldn't see me getting my laptop out from under my underwear and clothes! Then I finally reached the room and all four attendees. In about 10 minutes, I lost one of the four! :) What a way to start. My voice was shaking, my points were lost... but after he left I found my footing and did a decent job. For that talk I had three excellent reviews and one horrid one. I like to think I've gotten better since then.
For the next few years I spoke at every NFJS I could, as well as a number of other events. I got to hang out with Dave Hussman, Bruce Tate, Dave Thomas, Neal ford, Scott Davis, Venkat... I can't even list everyone! I was privileged to visit tons of Java user's groups and Agile user's groups. I've been in nearly every state in the continental US, visited Canada a few times, and been recognized by Starbuck's counter help in other states!
As I ramp down my traveling and speaking, I'd like to thank so many of you for coming to hear me speak, for blogging about the talks you liked, for buying my books, and for helping to make the last few years an incredible experience. I have good friends in San Jose, Denver, Boston, Memphis, and so many points in between.
I realize this is rambling a bit, but what's the point of having a blog if you can't wander off topic from time to time? :)
Once I catch my breath, I'll start writing again. I've got an update to Ship It! and book on testing rattling around in my head. I still might do an updated version of the Career 2.0 book as well.
As I write this, my daughters are creeping down the hallway... you'll have to excuse me now. I'm going to play with my kids. :)
Category: Personal
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