A new and frequently-requested feature has been added to InfoQ - MP3 download of interviews and presentations for registered users! To start with, MP3s will be available for the Agile 2009 presentations, which are also now becoming available on InfoQ thanks to a partnership with the Agile Alliance in which InfoQ filmed 18 select sessions from the event which just happened in August. Follow all of our Agile 09 coverage and our release schedule for the rest of the sessions at InfoQ.com/agile2009. The first five presentations which are currently available (with MP3 downloads) are:
Alistair Cockburn: I Come to Bury Agile, Not to Praise It (keynote)
Agile came from small, colocated projects in the 1990s. It has spread to large, globally distributed commercial projects, affecting the IEEE, the PMI, the SEI and the Department of Defense. Agile now sits in a larger landscape and should be viewed accordingly. This talk shows that landscape, clarifying how classical agile fits in and what constitutes effective development outside that narrow area.
Mary Poppendieck: Deliberate Practice in Software Development
In the nature vs. nurture debate, researchers have declared nurture the winner. People who excel are the ones who work the hardest; it takes ten+ years of deliberate practice to become an expert. Deliberate practice is not about putting in hours, it’s about working to improve performance. It does not mean doing what you are good at; it means challenging yourself under the guidance of a teacher.
J.B. Rainsberger: Integration Tests Are a Scam
Integration tests are a scam. You’re probably writing 2-5% of the integration tests you need to test thoroughly. You’re probably duplicating unit tests all over the place. Your integration tests probably duplicate each other all over the place. When an integration test fails, who knows what’s broken? Learn the two-pronged attack that solves the problem: collaboration tests and contract tests.
Scott Ambler: Agile by the Numbers: What People Are Really Doing in Practice
This talk summarizes the results of 4 years of industry surveys concerning the adoption and effectiveness of agile techniques. Very often the reality is significantly different than the rhetoric presented in mailing lists, in articles, and even in books. Many myths or ideas around Agile are explored, and some are proven false and some confirmed to be true based on survey results.
Ashley Johnson and Amr Elssamadisy: Scaling Up by Scaling Down: A (re)Focus on Individual Skills
The causality between performance in the small (individuals and teams) and performance in the large is highlighted and explained. Discover what you can do as an individual regardless of your position in the hierarchy to enable higher performance software development.
As InfoQ continues to add new interviews and presentations to the site, there will be MP3 downloads for all interviews and most of the presentations. In addition to these, we would like to know from the community which interviews and presentaitons from our catalog you would like to see in MP3 form - please let us know through your comments!