Free Test-First Courses – Next 24 Hours

March 8th, 2011

I am very happy that Pluralsight has seen fit to make some of my On Demand content free for the next 24 hours. I really like this model that Pluralsight has adopted of making our content available to the community and am proud to be a part of the team that creates it. Other than the occasional Pluralcast episode, I don’t usually cross pollenate my Elegant Code and Pluralsight lives. Even so, this is just too cool to pass up, so here it is.

I really am proud of the 2 courses being showcased, Test First Development 1 & 2.

Test First Development I

The first was a collaboration with K. Scott Allen of OdeToCode and offers a nice introduction to developers who still haven’t seen how TDD can really make your life better. If you work with that guy who tells you to stop wasting all that time writing tests, show this one to him or her. There is even a case in there you can make to your manager if you find that it is necessary to do so.

Test First Development II

The second course looks at some of the edgier technologies out there including MSpec, SpecFlow, StoryQ, and others that support BDD and ATDD. This one really focuses on getting us to create executable specifications and share them with our customers as we develop software. It might be worth a look just to see how some of those tools you’ve been hearing about work.

v.Next

There is certainly room for more content on this subject and I look forward to covering things like Silverlight, JavaScript, Databases, and other environments in which testing may pose specific challenges.

We’ve built a nice little design pattern library in there and my friend Steve Smith has an excellent course focusing on SOLID principles. Additionally, we are trying to grow the Tools and Practices curriculum. If there is something you would like to see in the online library, shoot me a note about it.

David Starr

  • Marcos Torres

    Hi David,
    I’ve just finished watching a great part of both courses, and let me say what a terrific job you have made (with Scott Allen).
    If Pluralsight wanted to show a top notch course in order to attract potential subscribers the choice was brilliant.
    Not only the content was great, (specially the second half of FTD II) but also the pace and diction (I am Spanish native speaker).

    Thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/ElegantCoder David Starr

    Thank you so much, Marcos. We are working on a player feature that will help non-native English speakers and are investigating some other language options as well.

    Stay tuned, because we actually do this every 2 weeks or so with different courses from the library.

  • robi y

    Any chance for another 24h? or at least the slides?

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