Fitnesse Presentation Update

The Solutions group at Quick Solutions where I work has a monthly department meeting where we go over the department’s business status followed by a grok talk.  The biz status update is one of the things I love about work at QSI: complete transparency with all employees being encouraged to have a clear grasp on what the company at large and our department is doing.

I gave tonight’s grok on using Fitnesse, but was disappointed in my presentation.  I didn’t get a good story out to the crowd on how Fitnesse can help with difficult biz process testing.  I also didn’t get a good story across on how the workflow of story-driven testing goes with Fitnesse.

I showed my own version of a ColumnFixture table tied to a payroll system, then I used Paul Vlagsma’s port of the examples from the FIT book for the rest of the grok.  I showed the ActionFixture example for the ChatServer which is effectively one set of steps in a workflow, and while it’s simple and cool it’s not really clear how that ties to a business process.

What I should have used was the Rental example showing an entire process flow:

This is a great example because it shows how you can use one test page to create setup values, sub-actions, and a series of workflow steps with specific tests along the way.  This example is a lot better demo of Fitnesse’s goodness.

So if you were at the grok, here’s an additional example for you to think about.  Sorry I didn’t flesh out this part of the talk better.

Now Playing: Mike Ferris — Salvation in Lights. Salvation in Lights has been getting a lot of play time as I work through code on a project I’m getting close to wrapping up.  I don’t spend a lot of time listening to gospel music, but Ferris’s bluesy/rock covers are just amazing.  He’s got a stunning voice, the songlist is wonderful, the band’s fantastic, and the production of the albumn is stunning.  Ferris spent a bit of time fronting for Double Trouble after Stevie Ray Vaughn died and he brings a lot of SRV’s gutsy style to this disk.  Ferris’s Goodnight Sun is also a terrific disk.