Tour: Patterns and Practices Lab | Charles

tshak

DigitalDud wrote:

I'd say working with as a team is definitely important but so is developer privacy. Considering developers are going to be spending most of their time debugging...

:O I certainly hope not! One of the benefits of Agile practices like TDD is that it replaces the need for debugging sessions. I still use the debugger on occasion but for short periods of time and usually with someone looking over my shoulder.

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

Eah... Great place to be and work...

Unfortunately it's impossible in my company. Also it's impossible for me to work in Microsoft - I'm allergic to C/CPP.

Ion Todirel
buuu

BlackTiger wrote:
Eah... Great place to be and work...

Unfortunately it's impossible in my company. Also it's impossible for me to work in Microsoft - I'm allergic to C/CPP.

there are many teams that develop in C# (or more generally .NET).

T1Guy

Wish our office was like that!

Thanks for giving us a peek at what it's like to work there.

PeterProvost

DigitalDud wrote:

I'd say working with as a team is definitely important but so is developer privacy. Considering developers are going to be spending most of their time debugging, I'd say some privacy and the ability to shut off distractions is going to be pretty important. The last thing you want when you're debugging, and going deep into the call stack, is someone coming in and disrupting your concentration.

The most interesting thing about the way we work is how little time our developers actually have to spend in the debugger. When you practice things like TDD and pair-programming, you literally spend less than 10% of your time in the debugger.

I was giving a "agile" presentation to another team here on campus lately and had a few other agile folks from around MSFT with me. I asked the room, "How much time you spend in the debugger?"

The team I was talking to responded with numbers like 50% or 75%. Then I asked my agile friends and they responded with numbers like 0% or 5%.

TDD allows you to build the system in a small way so surprises rarely occur. You don't spend very much time in the debugger, because you only added one or two lines of code since you last ran the tests.

I typically only use the debugger when an API call I'm using doesn't behave the way I expect. But then it is a VERY targeted attack. Step into the one test I'm having problems with, trace through to the API call and inspect the result. Once I've learned better what's going on, I add typically add a new test that explains that behavior better and then I can move on.

Hopefully that helps explain things a bit better.

--Peter

briankel

JohnAskew wrote:
Peter Provost is inspiring.

I'd like to plug a cable in the back of my neck and get a core dump of Agile.

Write a book about it, P&P.

Check out Microsoft Solutions Framework Essentials for a brand new book which addresses this topic. I haven't read it myself yet but it's getting good reviews.

Brian Keller

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

Considering developers are going to be spending most of their time debugging

50-75%

Imho, it's FAR TO MUCH. May be it's time to change developers? Or just "update" them. I personally spending up to 5% of my time in debugger. My secret - never jump between areas and see whole picture. But if you have stuff rotation then you will spend alot of time in debugger because of "spaghetti code".

BlackTiger
If you stumbled and fell down, it doesn't mean yet, that you're going in the wrong direction.

One more secret - never work with "bcos it's so cool" developers.
They are nice funny guys but worthless for project because too enthuziastic. Too much energy but wrong directions.

CompiledMonkey

Is this video available for download anymore???