November 26, 2003

XP West Michigan is a new user group for Extreme Programming.

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November 26, 2003

Grand Rapids, MI – More than twenty-five extreme programming enthusiasts attended the first meeting of XP West

Michigan, a new user group for individuals interested in extreme programming. The meeting was held at the Atomic Object offices on Tuesday evening, November 25. A networking opportunity started the evening’s agenda, allowing individuals from different companies with like interests to meet each other. The meeting portion began with a brainstorming session on what the group would like to see in the way of speakers, meeting locations, and funding mechanisms.

Following the business portion of the meeting, Carl Erickson, President of Atomic Object, gave a brief presentation on software testing in XP, and how Atomic Object applies these practices everyday. Carl said there are basically three types of testing: unit tests, system tests, and exploratory tests. With XP, the unit test is written before a line of application code is created. Unit tests are created using a framework such as JUnit or CPPUnit – and the test suite grows as the application grows.

Atomic Object creates system tests using a framework for system test automation they developed in-house called Haste. The beauty of this method is that the system test later acts as a maintainer of code integrity: when something in the software needs to be modified later, the developer doesn’t have to worry about breaking something in the code after it has been changed, since the previously developed system test can be run against the changed code to ensure integrity.

The third type of testing performed at Atomic Object is exploratory testing. This is testing performed after XP development, before the software is released. It is performed by an individual who emulates user activity. As Carl explained, exploratory testing tends to turn up some unusual bugs that developers may not have thought about testing or could not test efficiently in an automated fashion.

Following Carl’s testing overview, Michael Marsiglia, a developer for Atomic Object presented an interesting scenario he encountered where it seemed impossible to create a test for his specific application. He then walked the group through a clever solution, which he arrived at by using XP principles and some object oriented tricks.

Winding up the meeting was Bill Bereza, Vice President at Atomic Object. Bill presented a

story about how XP unit testing saved the day on a project with code that seemed so simple,

yet could have created havoc down the road had the a unit test not caught a bug.

XP West Michigan is planning its next meeting in January 2004. An

XP West Michigan web site has been developed as well.

Contact coordinater@xpwestmichigan.org if you’d like to join the mailing list to receive future announcements about this group’s activities.

About Atomic Object LLC

Atomic Object designs, develops, and delivers custom software solutions. We form partnerships with the business experts of our clients, contributing our knowledge of modern computing technologies and our reliable software development process. Based on agile practices in general, and Extreme Programming in specific, the Atomic Object development process delivers tested, reliable, maintainable software, predictably on time and budget, while significantly reducing project risk. With experience in a wide range of domains and industries—including e-commerce and web apps, business process automation, database integration, kiosks, and manufacturing software—Atomic Object specializes in having a world-class software development process, rather than being specialists in a particular business niche.

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Atomic Object Contact:

Carl Erickson
+1 616 776 6020
CarlErickson@atomicobject.com