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Fresh Ink An Advance Look at What's Inside This Month's Issue of Better Software Magazine 1 May 2008 Coming to a mailbox near you: - New & Notable - Featured Article - Blurring the Line Code Craft The Accidental Complexity of Logic by Kevlin Henney Test Connection Out of the Rut by Michael Bolton Management Chronicles Communicate, Don't Assimilate by Melissa Sienkiewicz - Editor's Note: Chivalry Isn't Dead ________________________________________________________________ New & Notable: Better Software magazine has a bug on the loose! Search through the digital edition to find the bug. We'll give you a clue, it's red, has wings, and flies; and it's hidden in one of the articles. Find and click the bug before May 31 to be entered for a chance to win a Nintendo Wii*. *Offer valid for US residents only, contest ends May 31, 2008. Winner will be notified via email by June 6, 2008. Can't wait to get the May issue of Better Software magazine in the mail? Visit http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sqe/bettersoftware0508 to read the digital edition today!* Attend the latest Web Seminar--"Avoid Throwaway Test Automation" Brought to you by StickyMinds.com and Better Software magazine * Sponsored by Cognizant * Automated testing is seen as a great way to get more testing done and save money doing it. But if it isn't done right, automated testing will only help you get less testing done and spend more money. Far too many companies find themselves spending time and money on tools and tests that bring them no value. Eventually, the tests they tried to develop and the tools they bought could wind up sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Join us May 13, at 11 a.m. ET. Register and attend to win an iPod Shuffle! http://www.sqe.com/go?WS051308FI **************************************************************** ADVERTISEMENT: Manage Your Testing Lifecycle with Seapine TestTrack Studio Track and manage all the details of your testing effort, including test cases, test data, test runs and results, and defects, with TestTrack Studio. Quickly view which tests were run, the results, and how much testing remains from one application. Download & evaluate TestTrack Studio now! http://www.seapine.com/index.php?s=30&k=959&d=488 **************************************************************** ________________________________________________________________ Writer's Block: While we do not think our team members need to be able to cleave a dragon in record time and most would look strange in a coat of heavy mail, we do think the ancient code of chivalry serves as an excellent code of conduct for team members on today's complex software projects. ~Martin Kearns and Mike Cohn, "The Chivalrous Team Member" ________________________________________________________________ Featured Article: It's a Bug! By Robert Sabourin and Anne Sabourin Bug triage, like labor and delivery triage, is about deciding a course of action on the spot, often with minimal information guiding decision making. Discover what other lessons Robert has learned from Anne's experience in nursing that have practical applications in his hunt for bugs. Click here to view a complete list of featured articles from this and past issues: http://www.stickyminds.com/BetterSoftware/magazine.asp?fn=cifea ________________________________________________________________ Blurring the Line: These articles appear simultaneously on StickyMinds.com. We encourage you to log on and post your comments and questions for the authors. The Accidental Complexity of Logic By Kevlin Henney Much code complexity and no small number of program defects can be traced back to confusion over logical expressions and the expression of logic. Find out how you can get that complexity under control. Keep reading and join the discussion at... http://www.stickyminds.com/CodeCraft10-4 Out of the Rut By Michael Bolton Are you bored? Do feel as if all you do is repeat heavily scripted tests and as a result you aren't learning, discovering new problems, or finding bugs? These eight heuristics can help you get out of your rut and take back control of your testing process. Keep reading and join the discussion on spicing up your test process at... http://www.stickyminds.com/TestConnection10-4 Communicate, Don't Assimilate By Melissa Sienkiewicz Opening an offshore office can be a tricky situation. Learn how to spread corporate values and processes to your new team members by working together instead of forcing them to adopt your way of thinking. Keep reading and join the discussion on bringing teams together at... http://www.stickyminds.com/ManagementChronicles10-4 **************************************************************** New Agile Training Courses New to Agile or just looking to broaden your skills? We have a new training program for you. Learn, experience, and practice the Scrum Master approach to managing development. Practice using test-first design development methods. Gain experience developing programs in small verifiable steps for better designs. Create user stories that describe what the user really needs. Attend two courses in the same location and save up to $300. Register today! http://www.sqe.com/go?AGEL **************************************************************** Media Spotlight StickyMinds SoundByte: Naomi Karten and Johanna Rothman In this episode of StickyMinds SoundByte, Naomi Karten details good and bad open-door policies and what we all can do to improve relationships between managers and employees. Then Francesca Matteu discusses Johanna Rothman's column about understanding the difference between project goals and requirements and why we must work on one before the other. Listen to the latest StickyMinds SoundByte podcast at http://www.stickyminds.com/podcasts#SMSB0408a **************************************************************** Editor's Note: Chivalry Isn't Dead Back in Ye Olde Days of high school, I had an avid interest in medieval history and fantasy writing. Being not only a teenager but a teenager who studied theater at a performing arts school, I had a taste for melodrama that was well fed by tales of knights in shining armor, dragons, and damsels in distress. I must have read a hundred books based on Arthurian legend and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least two dozen times. I regularly attended renaissance fairs and dreamed of taking a tour of Britain to visit the sites where King Arthur and Co. were purported to have lived. While the urge to spend an afternoon in a field watching grown men in homemade armor joust has waned a bit, I still love a good story set in the Middle Ages. Which is why I was so excited when I received this issue's article by Martin Kearns and Mike Cohn to edit. "The Chivalrous Team Member" takes the code of chivalry, which was updated in 1997 by Brian Price, and applies it to software development. The ten virtues described by Price also are attributes that are appealing in team members. Whether or not chain mail is your thing, you will find this article a great read. Also in this issue, "It's a Bug!" co-written by Robert Sabourin and Anne Sabourin, describes how Robert found testing inspiration in the work of his wife, Anne, a labor and delivery triage nurse. The similarities between the two processes are amazing. In "Let's Talk Agile," Ken Pugh presents some communication strategies and tools you can use to help team members transition from a traditional development environment to the more interactive relationships of an agile project. Some of the topics covered include personality types, communication styles, and active listening. In his Technically Speaking column, Lee Copeland asks, "What's the Deal with Investigators?" They don't seem to be sure of much. Sound familiar? Some workers in our industry seem to be suffering the same plight, but Lee has a solution: The Plan-Do-Check-Act process. Pollyanna Pixton has The Last Word this month with some great advice for project managers on deciding when you need to step up and manage and when you should step back and let your team find its own solutions. While I think every issue of Better Software magazine is an amazing resource filled with information that can be applied to your real-world projects, this issue has been especially fun to work on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Drop me an email and let me know how you put the May issue to work for you. Happy reading! Heather Shanholtzer HShanholtzer@sqe.com Find out what you missed in past issues at: http://www.stickyminds.com/FreshInk/archive.asp **************************************************************** ADVERTISEMENT: The Better Software Conference & EXPO Celebrates Five Years June 9-12, 2008 | The Venetian Resort | Las Vegas, Nevada Gain the best of agile development, project management, people and teams, testing and QA, requirements, process and metrics, and design and architecture. Learn about the latest tools, trends, and issues in software development. * Register Early and SAVE $200! * http://www.sqe.com/go?BSCE08FreshInk ****************************************************************************** Fresh Ink is an extension of StickyMinds.com and Better Software magazine--and a reminder that your "online resource for building better software" is just a click away at http://www.stickyminds.com/ ________________________________________
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