CAMUG April: X-Unit Test Patterns author Gerard Meszaros

This month, CAMUG is fortunate to be able to present local legend and CAMUG alumni Gerard Meszaros, author of the popular book "X-Unit Test Patterns". Gerard's book is considered by many to be the final say on unit testing patterns, and was recently awarded a Jolt Productivity Award. Gerard himself has been involved with the Agile community for quite some time and we're very lucky to have him.

The Agile Manifesto cites "Collaboration and Communication over Processes and Tools" as one of the 4 principles. If its so important, why don't we talk about it more? Gerard plans to do just that, talking about some of the key opportunities for collaboration on agile projects as well as supporting practices, tools and techniques. This talk won't just be about developing code but also about the things that should happen, collaboratively, before the code is designed and after it is written. The opportunities range from product conception through to testing with stops at paper prototyping, wizard of oz testing, specification via executable examples, etc..

Please join us and bring your friends and co-workers. No registration of membership is required.

When: Tuesday, April 1st - Coffee & Snacks 6:00-6:30 Talk 6:30-7:30
Where: University of Calgary, ICT 122

Gerard Meszaros is a Calgary-based consultant specializing is agile development processes. When not coaching development teams on how to do TDD better, or coaching the customer on how to right-size User Stories, he is typically involved in the early parts of projects where the project scope and development process are first decided. This includes envisioning the finished product, designing the product for fitness-for-purpose and usability, deciding on an appropriate release strategy, and determining how the project will be managed and measured.

Gerard has been a key innovator and thought leader in the agile community. He built his first unit testing framework in 1996 (complete with Mock Objects.) He invented Story-o-Types for right-sizing user stories in 2003 and his work on the relationship between User Stories and Use Cases is frequently cited by noted experts in both topics. More recently, he has incorporated usability practices into agile methods and applied eXtreme Programming to SAP ABAP development. He has also applied agile techniques in more traditional waterfall contexts including Story-Driven Use Case Development.

Gerard has applied automated unit and acceptance testing on projects ranging from full-on eXtreme Programming to traditional waterfall development. Along the way, he has become an expert in test automation patterns, refactoring of software and tests, and design for testability and he has cataloged numerous "bad smells" (symptoms of poorly written automated tests) and the "best practices" to overcome them. His book xUnit Test Patterns – Refactoring Test Code was published in the Martin Fowler Signature Series by Addison Wesley in May 2007.