Pair Programming has many benefits for a team above and beyond coding, yet it's still one of the hardest XP practices to get into. Ping Pong pairing is a lot of fun and is my favourite way to pair. It has a game-like style that instils good pairing and TDD practices. So come along to the next XPDX meeting to try it out. It doesn't matter if you've been pairing for years or want to try it for the first time. This will be a chance to learn from each other. We'll spend a little time getting to know the mechanics of Ping Pong pairing, do a brief demonstration, and then all pair up for over an hour of practice.

Absolutely positively bring a laptop with you. We'll be using Java, JUnit, and Eclipse. A big time saver will be to ensure that you have the Java SDK installed beforehand.

Thanks to VersionOne there'll be pizza for thirty! <<<

Be there at 6:30pm for the pizza. We'll start at 7pm. At 9pm we'll move on to a local bar.

When you make a change to your code, how do you know it still works as expected?

Do you make sure to check edge cases? Do you make sure to test all possible code-paths? Do you make sure the changes you made to one module don't break other modules that depend on it? Do you do all of the above every time you make any change, no matter how small the change?

Doing all that every time a change is made is a ton of work. There has got to be a better way!

Using our skills as programmers, we can automate the testing process. This allows us to be much more thorough while simultaneously reducing effort over the long run.

In this presentation, we will learn the basics of writing automated tests. We will discuss unit tests, integration tests, and test-driven development (TDD).

Presented by PDX Code Guild Instructor Evan Hackett