At the TSM discussion panels from September, which we held in Cluj and in Bucharest, Agile was the main topic. There were heated discussions, with many questions from the audience. The speakers imparted their knowledge and experience. Estimation was a hot topic. Time estimation, point estimation and even the #noestimates concepts (an idea proposed by the client sometimes) were analyzed depending on the opportunity to apply them. A case study was discussed where a developer estimated that each task would be done in 5 days, and he would do this not because he wanted a precise estimation, but rather because he did not want to make mistakes. The explanation was simple: if he could finish the task quickly, then it was very good for him, if the task took longer, he had a whole weekend to fix the problem. An issue raised by the audience was the manner in which a research task could be estimated. The answer was that an investigation task/a spike was added, and then, at the end, a presentation would be done to the entire team about the possible solutions and the estimation. Another aspect was that of quality. Quality can be driven to the extreme via mob programming where the entire team works on a single task. One person writes the code and the entire team watched. Only one task is implemented at a time, but the quality grows exponentially and no code review is required anymore, because the entire team is present. At the end of the day, the Romanian team hands over the task to the USA team which continues it with the same approach. Another question from the audience was whether there was a difference between Agile in outsourcing vs. Agile for product companies. The truth is that in both cases, there are time constraints, especially in the gaming industry, because games need to be finished before the winter holidays. You can find out more about the things that were discussed from the Expert Panel playlist on YouTube TSM.
As for the content of the current issue, we would like to draw your attention to three interviews: Performance in Java. An interview with Peter Lawrey -_ where we learn more about his opinion about Java 9, about the nature of Stackoverflow questions and about performance. Another interesting interview is the one where Philipp Kandal talks about automotive, startups, autonomous driving and machine learning. The third interview features Liviu Bălan, who introduces us to the Continental factory and R&D department, which we recently visited. Liviu Bălan was very kind to give us precious insight about what happens there.
The papers focus on testing. Smart Requirements for Smart Testing presents a way to define requirements using Give-When-Then (GWT) for the quick and easy configuration of test cases. The elegance of advanced automated testing architecture, based on open source components proposes a testing framework based on Python, Robot Framework, SikuliX, Selenium and AutoIT. Within the same testing field, but related to hardware, falls Memory in automotive where you will be able to read about the differences between the principles of hardware vs. software testing. In the same hardware field, we invite you to read about Why do we need monitoring and control in the production area? To better understand the processes and protocols used in the automotive industry. In terms of machine learning, the paper _The automatic classification of documents using natural language processing techniques presents the concepts and processes step by step. How not to use Docker presents a solution for initializing the data base while constructing Docker images. The last paper presents the Today Software Magazine Award Gala which will take place at the end of the second day of the IT Days event.
by Dan Mocan
by Robert Mălai
