Event:  NXTGEN User Group
Theme: Hoots Mon! Its Murphy Time!
Venue: Faraday Wharf, Aston Science Park, B7 4BB 
Date: Monday 21st January 2008
Time: 6.30pm-9.00pm 
Places: 25
Cost: FREE
Organisers: iCentrum & NxtGenUG

Aston Science Park near the city centre hosts NxtGenUG Birmingham. A great meeting place to discuss technology and eat pizza.

Who will benefit?
The developers and the technical community.

Guest Speaker - Craig Murphy
Hoots Mon! Its Murphy Time!     
 
With great dedication, Craig Murphy, DDD6 organiser, author, blogger, speaker and lynchpin of the UK Community travels from deepest Scotland to tell us why he believes in Test Driven Development and why we should do it too. In a 'double header' evening, Craig also gives us a whirlwind tour of Automated Build processes using FinalBuilder. It's not quite Burns Night, but we'll see if we can't have a poem or two, "To a USB Mouse" perhaps? There's certainly Pizza, certainly swag and maybe neeps and tatties too ...

Craig Murphy  - An Introduction to Test-Driven Development
With Test-Driven Development (TDD) now entering the mainstream via such tools as NUnit and more recently xUnit.net. If you are wondering how to "get more" from TDD, code coverage could well be part of the answer. Craig believes that we can improve the quality of our application by using a combination of TDD and code coverage. Over the course of 60-75 minutes Craig will introduce the benefits of code coverage using both manual methods and automated tools. He will briefly introduce TDD and will go on to demonstrate the benefits of using code coverage tools against your unit tests, i.e. how well do your tests exercise your classes/application? 
 
Craig Murphy  Automating Your Build Process ...
For non-trivial applications, having a managed build process is essential. However, if that build process is irksome to use and requires a series of fiddly steps in order to complete it, developers/build folks will not been too keen to run it frequently. This is a shame because a repeatable, fast and easy to use build process increases confidence and product quality. Automating the build involves scripting every action that you need in order to compile, test, deploy and re-test your application. Using FinalBuilder as an example, Craig will show you how this is done. Craig has no connection personal, financial, marital or otherwise with the makers of FinalBuilder, he just likes it and uses it ... 

Synopsis
iCentrum in conjunction with Aston Science Park are proud to host the NxtGen User Group.

NXTGEN has extended beyond the standard model of the developer User Group and has moved it beyond a generally loose, haphazard grouping of individuals to become a dynamic, 'branded', fun professional and influential organisation. NXTGEN liaise closely with Microsoft, whilst maintaining their independence. All founder members were recently invited out to the TechEd Developers 2007 in Barcelona, Microsoft's showpiece conference in Europe.

We will also work with other user groups to cross fertilise members. We hold monthly meetings, comprising of one or more presentations, news items, interviews, prizes and food. We will also hold more informal evenings - pie and a pint nights, just to chill, have something to eat and talk 'techie' - these will sometimes even feature a 'special guest.'

If you would like to attend to learn about technology and contribute to the technical community please register your interest to find out more.

For any further details about this event including exhibiting at future events, please call the events team on 0121 260 6168.

Find out more about exhibiting and sponsorship opportunities.

Visit the events calendar for further events.

Aston Science Park - The ideal business location. Call 0121 260 6168 for further details on the offices.