March 2nd, 2008 by Bartosz Bankowski
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The following Thursday a three-day IT conference is starting in Krakow – Studencki Festiwal Informatyczny 2008, organized by students of local universities. Polish Agile User Group, as well as other local user groups, was invited to prepare a workshop. As there was no interest in it on the mailing group, together with Kuba Dziwisz and Igor Czechowski we decided to make XP Lego Game! As far as I know it will be the first time in Poland during any public event. We have 2 hours to play and room for 20 people. So if you are going to visit the conference don’t miss it!
Anyway, I invite everyone to SFI, as a lot of interesting presentations are in the agenda. Chad Fowler’s Ruby: A Message from the Future and Gilad Bracha’s Learning from Legacy: Design Lessons from Java just to mention a few.
March 1st, 2008 by Bartosz Bankowski
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Two days ago I was co-organizing Agile event held in Krakow. It was called Agile Underground (guess where the meeting was)? Space in the magic Alchemia pub was very limited, so we invited about 60 people. Unfortunately only 40 joined us that evening. On the other hand the number of people was accurate compared to the size of the room we had.
Photo made by Krzysztof Dorosz.
The party started just after 7 PM with a short introduction (up to 40 seconds) from each of attendees. Adam and Kuba (the other two organizers) came up with an idea that everyone will prepare a slide about oneself, so we will have a chance to get to know each other a little bit. I was skeptical, but it went surprisingly well. Congratulations guys for the neat idea!
Then there was a time for two parallel presentations: Why Agile is hard to sell by Andy Brandt and How is it done in Google by Joanna Chwastowska. The audience divided itself in two camps and we gathered in the opposites sides of the room. I took part in the second one. It was very interesting as the author uncovered some internals about Google way of developing software. There was a nice discussion during the presentation. I know that the other presentation was also absorbing and worth to attend.
After a short break the next presentations started. I listened to How to get through the minefield, where Wojciech Biela told us a story of himself introducing Agile to the company he was working for and the challenges he encountered. On the other side of the room there was an open discussion (the topic was chosen by voting prior to the discussion) about what can’t be done with the help of Agile.
The last presentation of the evening was TDD in VS.NET 2005/2008 by Michal Brzozowski. I really enjoyed that one. As a Java developer I am not familiar with Visual Studio, so I had an opportunity to compare that environment with my day to day experiences.
At midnight most of people already left, but a group of agilists stayed in the pub for another couple of beers. Some interesting topics were discussed and finally around 2 AM it was all over.
I hope the Iteration 2 will come soon!
PS You can read report in Polish written by Olaf Bujak here.
March 1st, 2008 by Bartosz Bankowski
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Today I made a decision to start a blog! As my primary interests are around software development, that’s what I am going to blog about. Mainly I will focus on Agile, programming (Java, Ruby) and Test-Driven Development.
I am working in the organization that is using (but in many areas still adopting) Agile methodologies for several years. I have had an opportunity to be a part of various Agile (or so-called) teams for over two years. Professionally I am programming in Java Enterprise Edition with BDD/TDD being my favorite practices which I try to follow.
After hours I am also running Polish Agile User Group. This is a user group that gathers people interested in Agile from all over Poland. As for now our meetings are occurring in Krakow. We have had several noteworthy guests and will try to bring another ones. You are more than welcome to join us!
