Fox Forward Shows Some Love
Kevin posted the news today that Dave Bernard won best presenter at Fox Forward 2007. I didn’t make it in time for his opening session on Instrumenting Your VFP Application, unfortunately, but I did see the first and last halves (in reverse order) of his Does Your Application Understand You? session. Dave is doing some very exciting things with technology, and he has an easy going style when presenting. Well done!
My Red, Green, Refactor: Test-Driven Development with FoxUnit session won the best use of technology award. I was shocked, given the innovative approaches I saw during the conference. It is quite an honor to be recognized by my peers in this way. Thank you to everyone who voted, and everyone who attended for making this year’s Fox Forward the best yet.
On the first evening of the conference Stephen Bodnar asked me what the difference was between my Red, Green, Refactor session at Fox Forward and my Test-Driven Development pre-conference session at SouthWest Fox next month. My flip answer to his question is: about two hours. 
The longer answer is that I will be able to help attendees in Phoenix overcome some of the more challenging hurdles to starting TDD.
At Fox Forward, I mentioned an approach to test driving the UI, but I didn’t have time to demonstrate it. I talked about refactoring legacy code to support unit tests, but again, no time for a demo. In Alpharetta, I didn’t even touch on the subject of mock objects. In short, there’s lots more to unpack in TDD than I can address in a standard 75 minute session.
In fact, my repeat presentation was the last session of the day on Saturday, and the entire room kept their seats for ten extra minutes while I gave an extended demo of TDD with FoxUnit. Kevin came in to collect the projector and everyone was still listening to me talk! If you are signed up for the pre-con in Phoenix, or if you are considering it, I promise to give you your money’s worth.
Cheers,
++Alan
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Hi Alan,
Since I picked your pre-con session as my free early registration session, getting my money’s worth will be easy.
Seriously, though, this is one of the sessions I am most excited about. I look forward to meeting you in Phoenix.
Mike
Congratulations Alan! It was a great session. The techniques and strategies you presented were eye opening and very well presented. Great job. See you in Phoenix.
Even though I have no idea what you’re talking about, CONGRATULATIONS. ~peace~
Alan,
Congratulations on a well deserved award! Your topics were great, and your presentational skills were 2nd to none. You really took a lot of time and effort to make your sessions top notch, and it showed. Even your white papers were awesome, and really reminded me to do more on my own next time…you set the bar high, my friend! Seriously…well done!
–Michael