Agile Hong Kong

Code Jam 2

Conrad Benham — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:01:01 +0000

Hot on the heels of the “Will Agile work for you?” presentation is our second code jam. In this session, Tom and I will dust off the projector and give a short demonstration on pairing with particular focus given to Test Driven Development. We’ll also try working under time constrained mini-iterations. Duly, we’ll supply the problem specification on the night so you don’t have any preconceptions. This session will be good for developers of all levels. If you are a seasoned TDDer come along and we’ll prepare something of a more challenging nature.

When: 7pm until whenever, Monday, 19th of May
Where: Gecko Lounge
Address: LG/F, Ezra Lane Lower Hollywood Road, Hong Kong
Directions: Gecko is on Ezra Lane which runs between Pottinger St and the Escalator. Ezra lane is below Hollywood Road. If you enter off Pottinger Street you will find the lane is just opposite Soda Bar. If you enter the lane from the escalator you will find it opposite the Hot Dog shop. If you have any problems finding it call the Gecko Lounge on: 2537 4680
Map:

Will Agile work for you?

Conrad Benham — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:27:02 +0000

When people are told about Agile they often walk away saying “That sounds good in theory but couldn’t possibly work in the wild”. In out next event we will explore what it takes to be Agile. I’ll identify projects for which Agile is suited and those where it will be more challenging to implement. I’ll also look at the types of people and teams it takes to make Agile work. If time permits we’ll look at the parts of Agile that can be done without management endorsement.

Update: this topic is suitable for all people. There will be information relevant to developers, project managers and managers. Even if you aren’t likely to create an Agile team soon you will still benefit from understanding the dynamics of an Agile team regardless of your current role.

Thank you to the Fringe Club for allowing us to use their space for this event.

When: 7pm, Tuesday 13th of May 2008
Where: Fringe Gallery, Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/4tdpw9

Code Jam - Anagrams Code Kata

Conrad Benham — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:05:48 +0000

Recently we called a Code Jam in which the aim was to give people the opportunity to practice Pair Programming and Test Driven Development. The event also gave people the opportunity to share ideas about how to solve the problem. Most people solved the problem in Java or .NET though one pair solved it using Lua.

We chose Prag Daves Anagram Code Kata as the problem to solve. This code kata which involves identifying anagrams in a given list of words is simple enough to solve in a short period of time while offering some interesting challenges from an algorithm point of view.

I have uploaded a solution to the problem in Java. The solution I came up with was entirely Test Driven except for the Main class. I chose to go for an Object Oriented approach as opposed to a small, potentially terse, solution. If you inspect the code you will see it is quite easy to perform arbitrary queries on the anagrams (via the Anagrams.operate method). It should be a simple exercise to create a class that will find the largest set of anagrams or find any other piece of interesting information.

In attempting this problem, the solution I arrived at found 2531 anagrams - Dave Thomas claims there are only 2530. I’m sure there is a further check I could add but I just can’t see what it is at this point. If I ever stumble on it I’ll be sure to make an update to the code and upload it here.

My solution can be found here.

The solution contains the bare minimum, I have not included a build script, nor have I included any binaries. I decided not to include project files either as people were using different IDE’s for their development.

On an unrelated side note, we will call another meeting just as soon as we’ve found a new venue. The venue we were using for our meetings has unfortunately closed. If you know of somewhere near Central that would be suitable please let me know.

Webcast: Distributed Software Development

Conrad Benham — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:03:25 +0000

Agile Journal is hosting a webcast entitled “Making Distributed Software Development Work”. The webcast is due to start on Tuesday April 8, 2008 at 1800GMT. That time makes for a rather late broadcast here in Hong Kong. Incidentally that is one of the things that makes distributed agile interesting, the need to work across timezones.

The event will address the following specific topics:

Disconnection on project requirements or estimation
Decreased visibility into project status
Erosion of trust among individuals in the project

The webcast is being lead by Cary Schwaber a Senior Analyst from Forrester and Matthew Simons the Chief People Officer of ThoughtWorks. More information about the webcast can be found here. Registration is required to participate.

Agile 101 Summary

Conrad Benham — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:18:37 +0000

On Wednesday we held our second meeting. There was a lot of energy, it was great to see so many people getting involved!

Tom and I pair presented a high level overview of Agile and Extreme Programming. We talked about the history of Agile, The Manifesto and even compared or contrasted Agile to Waterfall. Many interesting questions came out of the various topics covered. It will not come as much of a surprise that Pair Programming sparked some questions. Questions were also raised around how a team delivers business value when a technology stack must be implemented before development can be started. The concept of spiking also provoked some discussion around what one does during a spike and whether they should be retained or not (Toni’s thoughts here).

Other topics covered were: Agile Planning, Coding, Designing and Testing.

Tom and I would like to thank all that came along for making it a very enjoyable evening and for contributing with questions and comments during the session. These questions and comments make for a varied and interesting meeting.

Remember: if you have any topics you’d like covered or have experience in a particular facet of Agile and would like to share that experience then please get in touch ().

Agile 101

Conrad Benham — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:38:23 +0000

On Wednesday March 12th Tom Scott and I will be giving an introductory overview of Agile. We will cover as broad a range of the Agile and Extreme Programming spectra as time will allow. This will be a session exploring the various aspects of Agile and Extreme Programming. We will also draw from our personal experiences.

The location is the same but the time has been moved to 7pm.

Where: Le Rideau Theatre
Address: 1st Floor, Hilltop Plaza, 49 Hollywood Road, Soho, Hong Kong
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/34w5kj
When: 7pm onwards, Wednesday 12th of March 2008

Agile at 10,000 feet

Conrad Benham — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:38:43 +0000

Agile Hong Kong is a new group, so it is fitting that one of the first informational postings be an introduction to Agile, related methodologies and principles. Here is a list of books, articles and websites containing information on some of the practices. This list is not definitive as there is much work out there dedicated to Agile - far more than could ever be captured here. The list should be a good start for those wanting to learn more about Agile.

All links open in a new window.

Methodologies

Agile is an umbrella term that is applied to a family or group of software development practices. Agile describes the practices that are generally applied by other methods including Extreme Programming, Crystal Clear, Scrum Alliance, Lean Software Development.

Agile Manifesto (website)
Agile Alliance (website)
Agile Data (website)
The New Methodology article by Martin Fowler
Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices by Robert C. Martin

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming (website)
What is Extreme Programming? article by Ron Jeffries
Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck (review)

Lean Software Development

Lean Software Development (website)
Lean Software Development by Tom Poppendieck

Crystal Clear

Crystal Clear (website)
Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams by Alistair Cockburn

Scrum Alliance

Scrum Alliance (website)
Scrum: Control Chaos (website)

Practices

Project Management

Cutter Consortium on Agile Product & Project Management (website)
Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products by Jim Highsmith

Stories, estimation and planning

Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn (review, book site)

Standups

It’s Not Just Standing Up: Patterns of Daily Stand-up Meetings article by Jason Yip
Stand-up Meeting Antipatterns blog posting by Charles Miller

Retrospectives

Retrospectives (website)
Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen

Sustainable Pace

Sustainable Pace article by Jeff Langr
The Pomodoro Technique (The Pomodoro) PDF by Francesco Cirillo (note: not directly focussed on Agile, but still applicable)

Design

Is Design Dead? article by Martin Fowler
Agile Design article by Scott W. Ambler
A Microcosm of Agile Design blog post by Jeremy D. Miller

Testing

Agile Testing (website)
Lessons Learned in Software Testing by Cem Kaner, James Bach, and Bret Pettichord (book site)
Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck

Pair Programming

Pair Programming (website)
All I Really Need to Know about Pair Programming I Learned In Kindergarten PDF by Laurie Williams and Robert Kessler
Strengthening the Case for Pair-Programming PDF by Laurie Williams, Robert Kessler, Ward Cunningham and Ron Jeffries
Pair Programming Illuminated by Laurie Williams and Robert Kessler

Refactoring

Refactoring (website)
Refactoring Bliki articles by Martin Fowler
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler
Refactoring to Patterns by Joshua Kerievsky
Refactoring Databases by Scott W. Ambler and Pramodkumar J. Sadalage

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration article by Martin Fowler
Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk by Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas and Andrew Glover

Disclaimer: no royalties, benefits or bribes were solicited or received for any of the links contained in this list. No animals were hurt either.

Our first meeting…

Conrad Benham — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:21:18 +0000

Our kick off meeting was held on Tuesday. I’d like to thank all for coming along and making this an informative and enjoyable evening. If you didn’t make it this time, then please come along to our next meeting (to be announced). There was a good crowd of people, with different levels of agile software development experience. Drinks were sponsored by ThoughtWorks.

Martin Fowler was on board and live for a questions and answers session. Martin answered questions raised mainly around agile software development though he started off with a brief introduction to agile software development. He was also challenged on contentious and discussion provoking topics such as documentation and adoption of agile in legacy code.

While this was the first, meetings will be held on a monthly basis and be announced in advance on this blog and also on Facebook. At this stage there is no fixed agenda to the meetings though it is expected that each meeting will focus on agile/XP. If you have any topics that you’re keen to discuss or are willing to present then please let me know (). All suggestions welcome!

Q&A with Martin Fowler - Change of Location

Conrad Benham — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:56:10 +0000

Please note that we have changed address for our Q&A session with Martin Fowler.

The new address is:

Where: Le Rideau Theatre
Address: 1st Floor, Hilltop Plaza, 49 Hollywood Road, Soho, Hong Kong
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/34w5kj
When: 6:30pm onwards, Tuesday 5th of February 2008

Q&A with Martin Fowler

Conrad Benham — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:00:07 +0000

Our first meeting of Agile Hong Kong will be on Tuesday 5th of February starting at 6:30pm. Special guest Martin Fowler will kick our first meeting off with a questions and answers session. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions so make sure you have your questions at the ready.

Drinks will be provided by our sponsor ThoughtWorks.

Please note the change of address!

Where: Le Rideau Theatre
Address: 1st Floor, Hilltop Plaza, 49 Hollywood Road, Soho, Hong Kong
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/34w5kj
When: 6:30pm onwards, Tuesday 5th of February 2008

Old address:

Where: Upper floor Havana Bar & Grill, 35 Elgin Street, Soho, Central, Hong Kong
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/359lmf
When: 6:30pm onwards, Tuesday 5th of February 2008