The art of being an agile programmer

Claudia Rosu

● Software developer at mozaicworks.com● 4 years experience in JEE development● 3 years experience with Agile practices● A girl working with the guys for making software development

better

Agenda● True story● The problems from the story● Root cause analysis for first problem● Technical practices to help us● Agile programmer at work● Joy of coding!

What was wrong?● Bugs discovered one day before ● Incomplete deployment instructions● Incomplete features

Root cause analysis

How to attack this nasty situation?How can we know we are doing the right thing?How can we know we are doing the things right?

Agile is about getting feedback as soon as possible in all phases of software development, not just when testing

Understand

Start with the User interface

● Build static html user interface according to mockup

● Validated it with the story owner

Acceptance Tests

● write integration tests as acceptance tests using code and business like language● they will ensure a common understanding of the story ● review them with a tester or/and the story owner● the implemented solution is complete if it passes all acceptance tests

Acceptance tests

@Testvoid newPrescriptionFormIsOpened() {

userOpesSubEncounter()userClicksOnWritePrescriptionActivity()assertNewPrescriptionFormIsOpened()

}

@Testvoid newPrescriptionIsCreatedWhenSaving() {

userEntersPrescriptionData()userSavesPrescription()assertNewPrescriptionHasBeenCreated()

}

Design and implement● design using code● write unit tests as a practice to reflect upon the code

● first advantage: you will write the minimal necessary amount of code for the logic that needs to be implemented

● second advantage: you are already testing your code, so less testing after

● Third advantage: you are already receiving feedback that your solution does what it is supposed to do

Refactoring

● Do this in order to polish the design● Do it step by step● Quite often, I have found bugs during refactoring● Take 30 minutes or 1 hour

to refactor old code also● Include this always while

implementing the story,

not after

Code review

● another check for bugs or flawed implementation

● a chance to do pair-programming, to learn from others

Early testing

● Start testing from analysis phase

● Continue during implementation

● Minimize the work not done

Automated tests

● sit back and watch how your automated tests are doing the manual testing for you

● they will also keep you away from entering regression bugs

Agile programminganalysis with acceptance tests and mockups

testing with acceptance tests and unit tests

design with unit tests

implementation with code, refactoring and code review

Agile programmer at work

● Use code to do analysis, design, implementation and testing● Write readable and maintainable code and tests● Strive for simplicity● Work in small and safe increments● Embrace change● Be creative● Communicate: give feedback and ask for feedback

claudia.rosu@mozaicworks.com@claudia_rosu

Referenceshttp://mozaicworks.com/blog/5-tips-to-avoid-release-hell-as-scrum-master/

http://mozaicworks.com/blog/a-developer-in-test/

http://www.infoq.com/articles/atdd-from-the-trenches

http://xprogramming.com/what-is-extreme-programming/