Agile Sharepoint development by 21apps and Andrew Woodward MVP

Great panel session at PDC on the future of Unit Testing. There were some good discussions by some ‘luminaries’ in the field (Peter Provost, Daniel Cazulino and others) that really talked more about where we are today than about where we are going in the future. Some of the biggest things I took from the session.

What is a Unit Test

People still don’t understand what a Unit Test is.  There were questions on complication on testing components, testing databases, testing WCF.  It shows that we have issues around not just unit testing but around testing in general the tools for integration and acceptance test are still lacking.

As with other aspects of development we are lacking the DSL (Domain Specific Language) and tools to make this work,  Unit Testing is probably in the best place.

Mocking - For and Against

There is a big split between those that like Mock frameworks and those that dont, in fact there wasn’t really a big split.  Peter Provost doesn’t like them, they encourage bad design, they let you get away with too much - I agree with Peter on this, however you don’t have an option in lots of situations.  I do not have the ability to refactor the framework I develop on as it’s written by Microsoft and called SharePoint.  Until the frameworks are refactored we need to use mocks - most of the audiance seemed to be in this camp.

Daniel Cazulino argued the case that using a framework to do your mocking and stubbing was good, people got too hung up on the mocking when actually most people just stub out methods using the framework, much the same as you would do manually if coded the waty Peter wants.

Some Futures

Not really that far in the future,  Microsoft Research have released Pex a system to automate whitebox testing.  I can see this having real bog value in situations where you have lots of legacy (existing) code that you can’t afford to refactor/rework.

The challenges of concurrency with the preverlance of multi-core systems and the improvements in tools to make coding easier.

Wow the demo on the new Office collaboration feaures at PDC2008 was fantastic. Everyone always asked of Excel Services can I edit my workbooks in the browser?  Can I see what other people values?   Now you can and in near real time.

Taking advantage of the Live Mesh services changes are sync’d between all devices automatically. The online editing is also pretty amazing,  will run in IE, Firefox and Safari.

Joel is doing some pretty good blogs remotely.  Good to see SharePoint still the platform of choice in the Enterprise.

Multiple ways to get the web application versions - Consumers through Office Online, Business Customers through Hosted Services and as part of Volume Licensing ON SHAREPOINT IN THE ENTERPRISE (That’s the key word we were looking for!)

See for yourself on Channel 9

Big news,  the announcement of Windows Azure as the cloud platform for everything that is Microsoft.  If you run it on site you will over time be able to run it in the Cloud.  Taking away the issues of scaling, effectively buying what you need.

Identity Management is a big play,  the ability to sync security from your on site Active Directory with the indentiy in the cloud.  Windows Azure is looking to take away the issue of identity from the developers.

SharePoint Online and running on Windows Azure will open it up to a new market,  not sure when we will see anything though - Ray is saying this will be a conservative roll out.

Sign up for the CTP of Windows Azure

Mike Gannotti has hinted that there is likely to ge some exciting news on the Future of SharePoint and Office 14 at the PDC.

SharePint was a great event,  not too many people and a way to meet up with old friends and meet some new faces.  It was great to see so many Microsoft SharePoint people,  Arpan was quoted as saying he’s not been as excited about a conference as this one.  Check out the SharePoint Team blog for news throughout the week.

Much like Andrew Connell when I setup on my own around 18 months ago I promised myself that I would go to conferences, I could never convince my previous company of the value.  I’ve had a steady build by with TechEd 2007, SharePoint Conference 2008 now time for the main event Microsoft PDC.  The buzz and excitment surrounding this event is just fantastic, follow me @21apps and others @PDC2008 to see what we’re up to.

For those that question the value, say you get the info online afterwards anyway and it’s just big jolly,  how wrong could you be.   The social aspects of the conference is so much more of a value add than I could ever have anticpated.  Over the past 18 months my network of friends and associates has expanded beyond anything I could have anticpated,  I can now say I could meet up for a #SharePint (SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night) in any continent and have someone I could meet!     If you’re going to your first conference (congrats) you need to get involved in the evenings activities,  have a beer and just hang out with like minded people.   If your into SharePoint and going to PDC you have to be at SharePoint by Day SharePint by Night PDC2008 Edition.

Expect some random posts of whats happening during the week,  if the preconference leaks are anything to go by there will be some big big announcements.   Hey we even have a new .Net Logo (from Scott Hanselman)

Going to PDC?   into Agile development?   going to be there for the Pre-conference sessions on Sunday?

You need to attend the session Agile Perspectives, Industry and Microsoft

Presenter(s): Mary Poppendieck, Grigori Melnik

Agile development is here! During this all-day agile session Mary Poppendieck, author of “Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit” will share profound insights that will optimize your agile processes. The session will focus on best practices and advice to avoid the most common pitfalls for teams practicing or moving towards agile. During the second half of the session, Grigori Melnik, Technical Program Manager in Microsoft Patterns & Practices team, will share the lessons learned his team has acquired over many, many agile projects. The session will close with a panel - including Mary, Grigori, and a few guest speakers - for you to ask your tough questions around agile development.

It’s a real shame that my flight doesn’t arrive until late on Sunday

If your going please tweet/blog/share the best bits.

Andrew Connell is co-ordinating the SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night event at PDC in LA.

Going to PDC 2008 in Los Angeles, CA in just over a week (or live in the greater LA area)? Interested in hanging out in a casual social setting with other folks interested in SharePoint? We’ll be doing another SharePoint by Day, SharePint by Night in LA the Sunday (October 26) @ 7p before PDC 2008 officially kicks off. So check into your hotel, drop your bags off and come on over to the Millennium Biltmore Hotel bar around 7p (till whenever) and join us (a few SharePoint MVPs will be there as well as a few folks from the SharePoint teams @ Microsoft).

I’m flying into LA on Sunday so will head straight to the Bar after checking in,  If you plan on comming please leave a comment on Andrews Connells blog post.

PDC 2008 is getting closer and,  although not a SharePoint event (it’s good to look at other things from time to time), there will be some SharePoint related sessions - sadly nothing on O14 but some good stuff.  I’m personally going to check out the FAST: Building Search-Driven Portals with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Silverlight, check out Paul Andrews blog post for details on the sessions and MS SharePoint people that will be manning a booth - I recommend you use the opportunity as it’s not every day this calibre of people are available to answer you questions.

From the UK I know the following SharePoint MVPs will be going and will most likely be found doing a SharePint one evening… i’ll post details when I know them.

Myself (Andrew Woodward), Spence Harbar,  Benn Robb and Penny Coventry.