[tpm] April Meeting - Thu 26 Apr, 2007 - Component-focused Testing and Test-Driven Development

[Adam Prime]

I just added this to upcoming.org (well it use to be upcoming.org)

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/184159/

It might be an idea to just do this as a part of the announcement 
process.  There are a number of other local users groups that already do it.

Adam

Michael Graham wrote:
> This month we two speakers on testing related subjects!
> 
> (These details are also on the TPM web site: http://to.pm.org/)
> 
>     Date:   Thursday 26 Apr 2006
> 
>     Time:   6:45pm
> 
>    Where:   2 Bloor Street West (NW corner of Yonge/Bloor, skyscraper
>             with the CIBC logo on top) Classroom TBA
> 
>   ===================================================================
> 
> Talk Details:
> 
>  Speaker #1: Jim Keenan
>       Title: Component-Focused Testing: The Case of the Parrot Build
>              Tools
> 
>    Duration: 40 minutes
> 
> Description: 
> 
>     Installation of an open-source software package such as Perl or a
>     CPAN module generally follows a 4-step process: configure, build,
>     test, install. Although 'make test' is usually thought of as the
>     place where all the testing happens, the successful completion of
>     each of the other stages implicitly constitutes the passing of a
>     functional test. But does there exist a place for a type of test
>     which is not included in the 'test' target but instead is run either
>     before the 'configure' stage or between the 'configure' and 'build'
>     stages?
> 
>     In this talk, Jim argues that there is a role for such tests and he
>     describes how he has implemented a number of test suites, run post-
>     configure but pre-build, for those of Parrot's build tools written
>     in Perl 5. Such tests encourage provide more rapid feedback on the
>     results of refactoring than 'make test' can. Indeed, they encourage
>     Phalanx-style refactoring which makes the build tools more
>     maintainable over the long run.
> 
>   -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>  Speaker #2: Henry Baragar 
>       Title: Test Driven Design: Or How I Learned to Love the KISS
>              Principle
> 
>    Duration: 40 minutes
> 
> Description: 
> 
>     Test Driven Development is a practice that can be used to improve
>     software quality by writing tests before writing code.  Applied
>     properly, this practice can be extended to the design activities as
>     well as code construction.  In other words, it is practical to
>     organically grow an application from an acorn to a mighty oak
>     without doing any up front design work.  
> 
>     To demonstrate Test Driven Design, Henry will walk through the
>     evolution of a real world example.  He will discuss the techniques,
>     examine some interesting and unexpected observations, and present
>     statistics from personal use.   Finally, the example will be
>     developed using Jifty so that you may gain some exposure and insight
>     into this interesting and cutting edge application framework.
> 
>   ===================================================================
> 
>   Note:
> 
>     The elevators in the building are "locked down" after 5:30pm
>     to people without building access cards.  Leading up to the
>     meeting someone will come down to the main floor lobby every
>     few minutes to ferry people upstairs.
> 
>     After 19:00, you can reach the access-card-carrying guy via
>     a cell phone number that we'll leave with security in the
>     front lobby.  The room and floor numbers will be left with
>     security too.
> 
> 
>