Conference Video - Deep Stack – Tracer Bullets from ADC to Browser
A blank page can be very intimidating, even for a Test-driven developer. Where do we start? Write a test, right? Not always.
more...This training course helps you build knowledge, understanding and skill in the engineering practices needed to build great C or C++ code. You learn how to build flexible and modular software with very few defects, software that can have a long useful life. We teach you skills to help prevent defects and keep code clean for a long and useful life.
Congratulations, you are practicing Debug-Later Programming! -- Don't put it on your resume yet. Let's compare Debug-Later Programming next to Test-Driven Development.
The problem with Debug Later Programming is that the mistakes go unnoticed. It may take days, weeks or months to get back to the developer. By then so many changes have been made that there is often no clear root cause. The programmer's only recourse is to start debugging.
How long does it take to find to cause of a bug? In general, that is an unanswerable question. You've had releases held up for defects. You've jettisoned valuable features because of defects. Debugging, an inherently unpredictable activity, can destroy the most carefully crafted plans. Bugs are expensive. They can put you out of business. They can cost you your reputation.
In comparison, with TDD there is immediate feedback. For new code, mistakes are put in your face. For the future (tomorrow and beyond), the tests provide a safety net, so that when the changes roll in, your tests immediately tell you of unintended consequences. This immediate notification helps prevent bugs. Not all bugs, of course, but most of them.
TDD helps prevent defects! You'll discover that with TDD you can detect your mistakes and fix them moments after you make them. The payback is in the initial release, as you waste less time chasing bugs, and you check something in that actually works! You'll later see other benefits you get from test-driving.
This course is a good option for individuals trying to sharpen skills, or small teams where an on-site class is not a good fit. It is also a good way for your team to get started and to know us better.
Test-Driven Development (TDD) helps you prevent defects by putting mistakes in your face as you work. It's humbling and worth it. TDD will save you hours and days of aggravation. With TDD you work in a tight feedback loop, adding a failing test, then writing just enough code to pass the test. This cycle continues as you exercise and confirm each path through the code.
This probably sounds backwards or crazy. You will find it is an effective and natural way to work. As a bonus it's rewarding and fun too!
With TDD, development and test automation are part of every day. Each iteration you add new features and capabilities. The tests form a safety net that notifies you when your code no longer meets the specification designed into each test.
For more information about how TDD can save you from the defect chase, read The Physics of TDD.
Code change is inevitable. But how do you make changes to code that ensure the design stays clean? The test safety net, woven with TDD, allows you to safely refactor your code and keep your system from deteriorating. You will learn to identify code and design problems, envision better solutions, and keep your code working during the transformation.
Our courses will help you learn the critical skills needed confidently evolve existing code without introducing new problems. See my 2016 Agile Technical Conference Talk, Refactoring: Three Critical Skills. You can find the slide deck here.
It is so natural for embedded developers to live with this pain. When hardware and software are concurrently developed, too often hardware is delivered late in the development cycle. A miracle is expected when the two come together. But there are no miracles in this line of work. If you rely on your target as the sole vehicle to test your code, get ready for pain and delays.
James first saw Test-Driven Development in 1999. His jaw dropped! Could TDD could help relieve the pain caused by the target-hardware bottleneck? Could we get code working in an off-target test environment before hardware is ready?!
James lived with the pain for the first twenty years of his career. No more though, and you don't have to either.
Our courses will help you learn to design for test. You'll have more than testable code, you'll have tested code! You'll see how TDD and off-target testing can help you break the target hardware bottleneck. You'll separate your core product behavior from hardware implementation details. Nearly for free you get future portability helping your code have a long and useful life.
Read more about progress before hardware here.
Scrum and agile have quickly become the status quo in many companies. Agile's short delivery cycles can seem disruptive and chaotic, particularly for those of us who grew up on waterfall. Many companies ramped up by training a few scrum masters, leaving the developers to just "figure it out" on their own.
Adopting iterative management, planning, and delivery -- and not investing in iterative engineering -- is a recipe for pain.
Want to stop the pain? The road to recovery can begin by attending our training. As you grow your iterative engineering skills you'll move the pain needle toward the green end of the spectrum. Adding iterative development to your skills can do more than just relieve pain, you'll enjoy developing even more.
With Wingman Software, you'll learn the engineering techniques needed to deliver working products with long useful lives. You'll start on a path to a more enjoyable career doing the things you like most: solving problems, programming, and delivering useful products. You'll also avoid the pain of delivering defects, debugging, and low morale.
Many developers before you have had those pains relieved by learning and practicing TDD. TDD can help you and your team deliver better software faster.
This course is a good option for individuals trying to sharpen skills, or small teams where an on-site class is not a good fit. It is also a good way for your team to get started and to know us better.
Your course will be hosted at the Wingman Training Center (on gather.town). The Wingman Training Center has a stage, meeting rooms, hallways, coffee and water stations as well as The Tiki Bar. Using gather-town goes beyond your zoom or webex style meeting. Participants can work one-on-one with others or in small groups. You can also meet in the hallway or by the water-cooler to get to know each other better. Watch this short video tour of the Wingman Training Center on gather-town.
The Wingman Training Center looks like a video game. Each participant has an avatar. When you walk up to another person's avatar, you are instantly joined into a meeting. If you are in the same private space as other avatars, you are in a meeting together. You can see and talk to each other as well as share your screen. When you explore the Wingman Training Center, you will notice that the map is highlighted as you enter different areas, these are private meeting areas.
Whoever has their avatar on the stage, can be heard and seen by everyone.
During our meeetings, when you have a question, walk up to the stage and ask. You can also use the chat. But if your instructor does not notice the question in the chat, feel free to walk up to the stage and get what you need.
Note: The Wingman Training Center on gather-town does change from time to time. The video does not show today's exact configuration.
September 13,14,15, 2022 (Tuesday to Thursday) | 08:00AM to 01:00PM ET (USA Eastern time) Click to see in your timezone Hours may change to accomodate attendees. |
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We learn new skills by doing, not just reading, listening, and thinking. Engineers are not so interested in changing how they work if the change does not help solve some identified problem. We’ve found this learning cycle to be invaluable to attendees of our courses.
In this course, we repeat this learning cycle, growing skills with each iteration. Our goal is to build new skills on top of the attendees' existing skills.
Module Objective: Software developers make mistakes. Mistakes undetected become defects with potentially huge costs. In this section, attendees can learn the motivations behind TDD and how the short test-driven cycles may help prevent defects.
During the debrief, we explore what people liked about TDD and what concerns them. Most attendees like the experience, but also have a serious concerns or two. It is important to bring the concerns into the open. This is a rare opportunity to reflect on how we work and to envision how TDD may help us improve.
Module Objective: Look at what is special about embedded systems programming, and some of the current industry-standard practice inefficiencies. We hope to show that TDD is well-suited for improving the embedded developer's product quality, as well as reducing some of the frustrations and waste when testing code in the target environment.
Module Objective: The most valuable code you have (the code with the potential longest life) has dependencies. This code embodies what makes your product special. Automated tests help preserve your investment, allowing changes that have fewer unwanted side effects (defects!). We'll look at principles and techniques to guide developers in creating modular, testable, and tested embedded software. We'll introduce Spies and Fakes. You'll see how Spies and Fakes can fully exercise the code under test.
Module Objective: Tests have many valuable uses. One overlooked value of tests is that they are documentation. Tests provide an executable specification of the code under test. This document shows how the code is supposed to be used and how it is supposed to work. This document is unambiguous; it's code! This document warns you whenever the code differs from the specification. To get the most value from tests as documentation, tests must be written to be read and understood.
Module Objectives: There is more to test-stubs than the Spy and the Fake. We'll look at an overview of Test-Doubles and when to use them.
Module Objective: How close to the silicon can we get value from TDD? We can get to within a single C instruction of the hardware. In this module, we dig into The Mock Object. Mocks are great for faking the hardware while testing a device driver. Mocking has other uses as well and is quite powerful. It also hurts test readability so we'll look at when to use Mocks and when to use other kinds of Test-Doubles.
For more depth in design and refactoring, you can follow our TDD course with SOLID Design and Refactoring for C or SOLID Design and Refactoring for C++
Module Objective: Now we face the reality that we have code that was not created with TDD. We've seen how TDD can help guide creating tested, modular and loosely coupled software. The reality: our code has problems. We don't have time to stop all feature development and retrofit our code base with tests. We'll look at the pragmatic approach to incrementally improving your valuable code base.
This course will get you and your team well on the way to applying TDD in your embedded C or C++ development efforts.
A blank page can be very intimidating, even for a Test-driven developer. Where do we start? Write a test, right? Not always.
more...Here is a short interview with James about TDD and embedded software from the deliver:Agile conference last spring.
more...Do you have some time to do a simple programming problem in C or C++ for my research?
more...My long-time good friend (Uncle) Bob Martin and I have fun programming together firing tracer bullets for distributed water pressure measurement system.
more...You can find a recording of the webinar presentation James Grenning gave with Jama Software on this page (once it is posted): Agile for Embedded -- Overview and Pitfalls.
more...James is the author of Test-Driven Development for Embedded C.
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