First AgileBCS Meeting
Today was the first meeting of the AgileBCS group. About 12 people showed up, and I knew most of them from previous community events. I have noticed that people with a passion for development are typically the first and only ones to come to meetings like this. They are looking to share their successes in software development and learn from others who have had success as well.
It was a good meeting and I met a few people I can learn from and reminisced about working with a few of the others. I’m really interested in working with a few of the guys who have done Continuous Integration and automated deployment of PHP applications. I have a nice system – svn, NAnt, NUnit, CruiseControl.NET – that I use for .NET development, but the PHP world is now foreign to me and I’m really putting it to the test with the demands of an enterprise level development platform.
The meeting was very informal and I was rather disappointed that no one took charge and really opened up a topic to the whole group. As such, about 4 different groups split off conversations on everything from homebrewing beer to introducing customers to agile practices. I’m hoping that next meeting will have a focused purpose and will bring more value to the stated mission of the group.
We also decided to review The Pragmatic Programmer at the next meeting. I’m pretty excited about this, and my copy came in the mail today. After reading the preface and foreword, I am hooked. This looks like just the key to increasing my ability by learning successful habits and practices from other people’s experience. When all is said and done I hope to integrate the new knowledge into my every day learning and development as well.
So, I have hope that this group will become strong and will not die off like so many others I’ve recently been involved with. Development groups in this area are typically small and scattered and if they survive more than 2 or 3 meetings I would consider them a success. Here’s looking forward to another AgileBCS meeting!
Reader Comments
Well Ben, AgileBCS has survived more than 2 or 3 meetings. It was good to see you in the audience again last night.
Allen had a really great presentation that looked at how different levels of the hierarchy impact team productivity. I think there were about 20 folks in attendance last night. The venue could have been better, but I think in due time we’ll find a good home for AgileBCS evening presentations.
Membership on the list (http://groups.google.com/group/agilebcs) has grown to 40. I’m sure there a few that are following us on Twitter @AgileBCS that aren’t on the list. All things considered, I think the organization is rolling along rather nicely.
By the way Ben, I think it’s your turn to do a presentation.
Want to dust off your TDD talk? I think that might make for a good follow on to Jane’s talk about XP.