GRAFUG Meeting March 13

GRAFUG Meeting March 13, 2010

Thanks to everyone who attended the March 13, 2010 GRAFUG meeting. This was another informal meeting with open discussions.

What We Discussed

Bug Bash:

We discussed the concept of bug bashes and how helpful they are. A bug bash is a day you set aside for your entire staff to test the software. By "entire staff", it means everyone; programmers, testers, support staff, the secretary, managers, etc. Anyone and everyone gets to pound away on the software and try to break it! You can even invite some select customers to come to the bug bash.
It is most effective if everyone can bring their laptops into a conference room or other common area and all work at the same time. This helps with the synergy of testing. As someone comments about a bug they found, it might make someone else think of a related situation to test. Ideas from one person may spark ideas from another person. So try to have as many people as possible work in the same area.
The rules for the bug bash are that there aren't any rules. Nobody is required to test one specific area. Nobody is restricted from any portion of the software. This is a total free-for-all. You can test whatever you want!! That's part of the concept of the bug bash is to do what you don't normally do.
Bring lunch in to help continue the synergy and atmosphere.
As bugs are found, enter them into some type of bug tracking software or log. At the end of the day, hand out corny prizes for various things. For example, a toy VW Bug car can be given to someone with the most bugs. Or a box of Mac & Cheese to the person with the "cheesiest" bug. Hand out toy spiders or other bugs for oldest bug, newest bug, most dangerous bug, etc. People will enjoy being able to proudly display their prize in their office.
You will be amazed at how many bugs are uncovered at a bug bash. You'll also be amazed at how deep the bugs are or how old the bugs are. It is really a great quality control tool to use.

Reporting:

We talked a little bit about reporting. A few specific questions were asked and answered.
We also talked a little bit about Stonefield reporting.

Beta Testing:

We talked about the process of beta testing. It's important to let a select few test the software before it's released to the masses. No matter how much testing you do internally, the customers will always find ways to break the software. Pick some customers that represent various types; newbie users, experienced users, light users, heavy users, etc. It's best to have a few customers test and hit any bugs instead of 100s of customers all at once, especially if the bug destroys data and you need to fix live data.
If you use a particular software often and would like to be a beta tester, contact the company that creates that software and ask them if you can be part of their beta program. There usually isn't any compensation but the benefits can easily make it worth your while. By being involved in beta testing, you ensure the software works with your data and your processes. If you find a bug, you're much more likely to get it addressed at this stage of the game instead of waiting until the software is released to the public.

Mike Timpe's Design Issue:

We spent quite a bit of time discussing an issue that Mike Timpe is facing with a project at work. He explained the details to us, along with the dilemmas he is facing. He asked for input on how to resolve the problem at hand. We offered several different solutions, but in the end, we determined his issue is NOT a programming issue, but rather a "process" issue. Company policies are conflicting with all solutions to the programming problem, thus, until company policy changes, we couldn't offer Mike any viable solutions to the issue. Sorry Mike.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting takes place on Saturday, April 10, 2010, at 10:00.

Presenter: Rick Schummer of White Light Computing

VFP and MySQL: Case Study for Remote Data

For many years Visual FoxPro developers have found backend databases to be a compelling alternative to the DBF data store. There are many good reasons to move to a backend database. The business model of distributed locations and facilities is not uncommon. Because of the way Visual FoxPro caches tables and indexes, DBF data does not scale well over the WAN, pushing people to a backend data store. Another business concern is the security of the DBF files and easy access to anyone with network/workstation access to the folder where they are stored. Businesses cannot afford to have their competitive advantage walk out the door on a thumb drive. Then there is the ever unpopular technical limitation of the two gigabyte table size limit.

There are lots of good reasons you or your customer might want to migrate to a server-based backend database.

Visual FoxPro is very flexible in working with backend data. In fact, even though Visual FoxPro has a long history deeply seeded with the DBF standard, the development environment and the language is really data store agnostic.

In this session, you'll see how you can leverage MySQL (or for that matter, any backend data) to have data sit on a server (Web, file, or data), and have a Web application and a VFP desktop application both access the same database. The demonstrations will be performed on a live application developed as a prototype for two production applications created for actual customers that fit this model. The session is filled with real world experience and the wisdom shared should give developers a huge head start if they are just getting started with remote data, and some things to consider even if you have experience working with backend databases.

You will learn:
- Fundamentals of working with MySQL and other backend databases
- Pros and cons to different access techniques to remote data (remote views, cursoradapters, SQL passthrough)
- Performance vs. ease of use vs. flexibility considerations approaching backend data
- Simple model for architecting a distributed application
- Lessons learned in setting up a distributed application
- Challenges to consider before you decide to make the jump to a backend database

Resume and Other Job Related Topics.

Rick's Bio:

Rick Schummer is the president and lead geek at White Light Computing, Inc., headquartered in southeast Michigan, USA. He prides himself in guiding his customer's Information Technology investment toward success. He enjoys working with top-notch developers; has a passion for developing software using best practices, and for surpassing customer expectations, not just meeting them. After hours you might find him creating developer tools that improve developer productivity, or writing articles for his favorite Fox periodical: FoxRockX.

Rick is a co-author of Making Sense of Sedna and SP2, Visual FoxPro Best Practices for the Next Ten Years, What's New In Nine: Visual FoxPro's Latest Hits, Deploying Visual FoxPro Solutions, MegaFox: 1002 Things You Wanted To Know About Extending Visual FoxPro, and 1001 Things You Always Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro. He is regular presenter at user groups in North America and is founding member and Secretary of the Detroit Area Fox User Group (DAFUG). Rick is one of the organizers of the Southwest Fox Conference, and is a regular presenter at other conferences in North America, Europe, and Australia. He is also an administrator of VFPX, and a Microsoft VFP MVP since 2002.

You can contact him via email at raschummer@whitelightcomputing.com, find him on Twitter @rschummer, or via his company Web site:http://www.whitelightcomputing.com. Read more of his thoughts on Visual FoxPro in his blog: Shedding Some Light (http://rickschummer.com/blog).

Lunch:

After the meeting several people usually go to Arnie's for lunch to continue the great conversations. Plan to join us if you can.

As always ... if you have any ideas for future meetings, please let us know ... especially if you're volunteering to be the presenter!!

Cathy Pountney

GRAFUG Secretary

www.grafug.com

If you'd like to be removed from our mailing list, or this email did not reach your preferred email address, please let me know.