Philly.NET User Group in South Jersey Meets Again

Last year, Philly.NET spawned off a south Jersey edition of the .NET developer group.  It's tough to organize these meetings and find a location on a recurring basis.  Anyway, thanks to Travis Laborde and others, the South Jersey folks are back again!  You can find them at their new website:  https://www.phillynj.net

They're kicking off with their first meeting this Wednesday April 30th in Greenwich, NJ with two great speakers from the Philly area:

Brian Donahue - Behavior Driven Development: The Evolution of TDD

Test Driven Development has been gaining prominence, and many developers recognize the value it provides.  Still, TDD adoption can be a slow and painful process, and often results in early abandonment as challenges mount.  Many believe the current body of TDD knowledge puts too much emphasis on testing implementation details, and not enough on testing behavior.  Behavior Driven Development (BDD) takes a more focused approach to TDD that can help clarify the testing process, and create a meaningful, readable suite of tests that not only helps you and other developers understand your application, but can be used to show your client that the application is meeting their needs.  When developers, customers, and managers can clearly see the value of writing tests, everyone wins.

Brian Donahue is a software developer with 10 years experience with a variety of web application platforms, focusing recently on ASP.NET.  His consulting company, Vitreo Solutions ( www.vitreosolutions.com), builds custom business software for its clients.  A strong believer in Agile and Extreme Programming (XP) principles and practices, Brian tries to promote their use in his work, as well as in the software development community.  He recently organized a Philadelphia "ALT.NET" (https://phillyalt.net), a user group focused on exploring the ideas and tools that can help us become better "software craftspeople" on the .NET platform.  Principles such as agility, testability, and maintainability are common themes, as well as discussion of open source software and other alternatives that can help make your .NET software development easier, and more fun.  Brian blogs at https://persistall.com

Steve Andrews - Automation with MSBuild 3.5 and Team Build 2008

Did you know that .csproj and .vbproj files are really MSBuild files?  More than build processes though, MSBuild is a full-featured automation language.  It includes structured control flow, variables, refactorability, error handling, logging, and powerful extensibility.  You can easily integrate MSBuild into your own enterprise processes and start adding value right away.  We'll also look at how Team Foundation Build extends on MSBuild and adds robust integration with Team Foundation Server.

Steve Andrews is a Software Engineer and Architectural Guidance team member at RDA Corporation with over 9 years of experience implementing custom Microsoft solutions in the Financial, Medical, Manufacturing and Retail industries.  Lately, Steve has been focusing on architecture, process, and the Team System platform.  Steve is also an MCP, ICSOO, Speaker Liaison for the Philly .NET User Group, and all around .NET fanatic. You can visit his blog at www.dotneticated.com.

The meeting will be hosted at the Greenwich Township Public Library.  You can find directions here.