User Acceptance Testing

User Acceptance Testing

Welcome to the next episode in our new series “Integrating testing into your development flow”. Today we are going to be looking at “User Acceptance Testing”. In our last presentation we will be talking about Integration Testing. Specifically, what it is, when should we do it, who does it, and why is it so important?  We went into why most of this type of testing is typically done by a QA manager or test team, not the developer. Including the different types of testing such as big bang, top-down, bottom-up, and sandwich/hybrid approaches. Ending with a real-world use case example of why/how a company would apply it. Plus some tips on the best practices you should consider when doing integration... Read more

Django website

Django Website Basics – Models And Forms

This series looks at Python and Django.  We continue our tutorials by exploring the steps to build a Django website.  There are a few keys areas to understand, and then we are off and running.  In this presentation, we introduce forms, models, views, and URLs. Forms and Views Our last presentation was an introduction to the models and building a database.  We start with a review and then tie those items to the front-end of our solution.  We can quickly use templates to create a modern web application.  The Django framework even pushes us to do this in a manner that is easy to maintain. Views provide our routing logic, and then we jump into scripting out our HTML pages... Read more

develpreneur podcast

Using The Sprint Retrospective For Agile Improvement

The sprint retrospective is where we take the time to assess how we did and plan for improvement.  It is essential for getting better.  Unfortunately, running this activity can be challenging and easy to underestimate for its value.  Here are some suggestions for converting the time spent in a retrospective into action items for improvement. Initial Challenges All teams start out working on how they communicate.  That is just the nature of being human beings.  It is not different in the professional world.  We have processes to clarify and terminology to agree upon.  That means an early sprint retrospective will likely have this “low hanging fruit” to address.  These items may seem trivial or surprising for an experienced team.  However,... Read more

develpreneur podcast

Sprint Planning – Setting The Scope

We have set a goal of delivering working software as part of every sprint.  That requires sprint planning and deciding on what will be in or out of scope.  In this episode, we look at ways to craft a sprint and assist us in setting priorities and content.  The ultimate goal is to provide working software that satisfies the customer. The First Step When we start a project, there will often be an overwhelming amount of tasks in the backlog.  We will need to go through several sprints to reduce that long list of items.  Our goal is working software along the way so consider crafting a story for each sprint.  This will provide a way to tie together the... Read more

django models and admin tools

Django Models and Administration Features

Django gives us a robust set of tools for our database and administration of our application.  This tutorial provides an introduction to Django models and those tools.  We will look at how to create and modify our application database and configure security quickly. Django Models Our tour of Django begins with the models and how they make it easy to create a database and maintain them.  The definition of a table is relatively easy to learn, and we get a command-line option for migrating changes to our DB.  That eliminates one of the common challenges to modern development which is, tracking changes to the database.  We can craft build scripts and version control those.  However, Django automates those change scripts... Read more

develpreneur podcast

Sprint Grooming – Deciding on the Included Tasks

Several sub-tasks are needed for proper sprint grooming.  They are essential steps in crafting a sprint plan.  These tasks are not trivial and include such on-going difficulties as estimating the time or effort required.  In this episode, we will look closer at these essential activities. Estimating Effort There is no end to the content available to assist us in estimating effort.  However, there is also no silver bullet that allows us to guarantee proper estimation.  That is not a blocking issue.  We will get better at estimating as we do it more often.  Perfection is not needed.  We do want to be as consistent as possible and be able to get close to our estimates.  This task is not for... Read more