2009
12.16

After years of hearing about just how cool the ruby on rails framework is and being typically cynical about the whole thing I decided to check it out. The image I had of rails was that of a framework adopted by tree hugging, corduroy trouser wearing and long haired hippies. Learning ruby was fun but not entirely dissimilar from C# 3.5 and it is obvious to see the influence that ruby has had on C# 3.5.

It is hard to describe how game changing discovering rails has been for me. The ethos and methodology is expressed in a frictionless development environment that is articulated in each rails project. Convention over configuration is a culture I thought I was practicing in .NET.How wrong I was….

I would like to share my findings and report back to the .NET community of what can be learned from rails and possibly to a lesser extent ruby.

Speaker

Paul was born in bred in Belfast before leaving for the mainland in 2004.  He now runs his own business in Glasgow where he hopes to create a developer centric environment that creates great software. He previously spent 4 years working for twentysixlondon, working as a technical architect where he worked mainly on public facing websites such as the Volvo Ocean Race, Waitrose, Closer and Abercrombie And Kent

The Volvo Ocean Race website tracked a round the world yacht race through ten months of race time. During race time, the website was updated with live race and telemetry boat information in as real time as possible.

Before twentysixlondon Paul spent his career working for Fujitsu in Belfast where he worked on numerous government projects.

Paul’s hobbies include Boxing.

Location

Scottish Developers have been kind enough to help organise a venue for use and have arranged for Equator to let us use their board room. Due to size of the room, we have to limit the available spots to 12. The presentation will take place on the 4th February at 7:30pm.

Equator,
Ground Floor,
Moda, 144 Elliot Street
Glasgow, G3 8EX

Google Maps


2009
12.04
There are many advantages a robust unit test suite gives to software development but there is an equally wide variety of unit testing technologies. In this talk, we will look at an approach to extending the ‘traditional’ form of unit testing with parameterization as well as specification tests in a functional context. Two testing tools will be used to provide a practical context. Pex is a framework produced by Microsoft Research that enables the creation of parameterized unit tests. These tests allow developers to perform a systematic analysis of the SUT and flush out boundary conditions and exceptional cases that may have otherwise been missed. QuickCheck is a unit testing library originally developed in Haskell that performs random tests within a specification the SUT should satisfy. Test failures are then ’shrunk’ to provide a minimal example of failure in an effort to minimize debugging.
Speaker
James Lynch is currently working for Storm ID in Edinburgh and has a working background in .Net web development. He has an avid interest in new technologies and finding out what different programming languages have to offer.
Location
Thanks to Microsoft for providing the location for this event
7.30pm on Thursday 7th January 2010
Microsoft Edinburgh
Waverley Gate
2-4 Waterloo Place
Edinburgh EH1 3EG