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Software Development

Tutorials

MB Explore Big Data with Graph Databases: A Hands-On Practicum NEW
Andy Palmer, RiverGlide
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

SQL and MapReduce databases are great—when your data is well-partitioned and the same queries are run regularly. What happens when we don't know what we will want to know in the future? Graph databases are used in everything from Facebook to business intelligence apps. With nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data, graph databases give us the opportunity to define the landscape as we learn more about our data. Using graph databases we can start at a location and ask for a description of where we are. This allows us to discover pathways and interesting data points that we might not otherwise have been aware of. Andy Palmer explains how you can discover the data landscape and bend it to your will with exploratory reports. Starting with the fundamentals of graph databases—using Neo4J as the tool—your skills with graph databases will increase through the day until you are able to explore and discover new gems of information for yourself.


Bring your laptop and try a big data tool.

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ME Build Product Backlogs with Test-Driven Thinking―and More SOLD OUT NEW
David Hussman, DevJam
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

Many product backlogs of user stories are nothing more than glorified to-do lists. Teams have lost the idea of prioritizing real business value and focus instead only on finishing stories and accumulating story points. Join David Hussman as he drives a stake into the heart of lame backlogs and breathes new life into product design with pragmatic UX and test-driven thinking. Using real-world examples, David shares his experiences and teaches tools you can use to fuse centered-product thinking with end-to-end testing. These techniques include: developing test-driven user experiences, improving product discovery (backlog grooming) sessions with testing talk, adding story clarity with examples and tests, validating requirements with tests, connecting program teams by decomposing product ideas into small testable stories, and recomposing them to validate product level learning. Because we learn by doing and questioning as we go, show up ready to work. This session is for testers, developers, product owners, and anyone else interested in improving their product thinking and product backlog. Bring your failing product backlog stories for discussion, too.

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MJ Continuous Testing to Drive Continuous Integration and Deployment NEW
Cory Foy, Cory Foy, LLC
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 1:00pm

Continuous integration and continuous testing are two vital agile feedback loops that lead to a continuous deployment environment. Continuous integration processes monitor source code―recompiling after every change, running smaller tests, and notifying the developer if anything goes wrong. Continuous testing (and potentially continuous deployment) monitors integration builds, installs the product in a staging environment, and runs integration tests, again looking for problems. Jared Richardson explains the ideas and then the tools needed to implement both continuous integration and continuous deployment. Jared demonstrates the open source continuous integration tool Jenkins as the center of the process. These powerful concepts ensure issues are detected within minutes of most code changes, and the developer is notified so he can fix the problem and learn from the experience. Even a partial adoption changes the cadence of a development organization and eliminates a great deal of ongoing code maintenance. Learn how to sell the idea and set up the process in your own organization.

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One of the latest facets of the mobile paradigm is mobile wearables―a new generation of personalized technology that knows us better than our closest friends do. How many of your friends know how far you walked or what you ate today? Although you may think mobile wearables are just for geeks, they will become commonplace very quickly. Our challenge is to develop applications that can synthesize context from the gigantic amount of data these devices and their sensors generate. Ensuring the privacy and security of device usage and its data will be of highest concern. Philip Lew systematically analyzes context―the most important element in future design and development of mobile applications while incorporating big data, privacy, and security. Using examples, Philip shows the contextual elements you need to consider now and discusses how to identify key factors for a future generation of wearable products based on discovering anticipatory services.

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MO Agile Estimation and Planning: Scrum, Kanban, and Beyond
David Hussman, DevJam
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 1:00pm

If you are new to agile methods—or trying to improve your estimation and planning skills—this session is for you. David Hussman brings years of experience coaching teams on how to employ XP, lean, Scrum, and kanban. He advises teams to obtain the estimating skills they need from these approaches rather than following a prescribed process. From start to finish, David focuses on learning from estimates as you learn to estimate. He covers skills and techniques from story point estimating delivered within iterations to planning without estimates by delivering a continuous flow of value. Going beyond the simple mechanics of estimation and planning, David explores agile techniques to enable continuous learning and ways to prevent sprint planning sessions from becoming empty rituals. Join David and your peers to practice your agile estimation and planning techniques so they can become powerful tools within your project.

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