Screencast - Test Driving an Inventory Screen

Tuesday, May 13 2008 12 Comments

A few weeks back Chad Myers and I recorded a screencast to demonstrate TDD in action.  We had some issues with the recording (again) but I was able to mix it all up and produce this stellar TDD screencast for all of you friends.

A couple things to note:

  • Chad and I are BDD enthusiasts, not experts... so you might see a bit of a quirky hybrid approach.  Don't TwitterFlame us please ;).  I am, however, finding that the more and more I use BDD style tests that I feel myself leaning towards that style, but it's a progression.
  • Chad and I apparently live in different time dimensions, as our audio streams were totally out of sync.  I tried to fix it, but I'm a coder, not a production contortionist.  It's definitely watchable, but the last 20 minutes or so is a bit off sync.
  • It's long...  I tried to bring it down a bit by cutting out silence, but then I just wanted to release it already :)

So without further ado, you can watch the screencast here:

http://www.benscheirman.com/screencasts/tdd-inventory

Total Length: 94min

Please let us know what you think in the comments.   If you find this is useful then perhaps we will do more of these.

update:  a few of you have asked for the code.  I’ll be sure and make this available for future screencasts.  You can download the project here:

File Attachment: TDDInventory.zip (139 KB)

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#1 Aaron Jensen avatar
Aaron Jensen
5.14.2008
9:47 AM

Good stuff. One suggestion, you may want to look into something like pamela for skype so that only one of you is doing the recording. You could theoretically have sync trouble between audio and video then, but at least the audio streams would be in sync. Alternatively, can camtasia/cam studio record "what you say" AND "what you hear"? I've never tried it, but it'd surprise me if both couldn't.


#2 Ben Scheirman avatar
Ben Scheirman
5.14.2008
11:20 AM

Thanks for the tip.I'd rather sacrifice audio quality than timing.


#3 Mohammad Azam avatar
Mohammad Azam
5.14.2008
12:41 PM

Hi Ben, Nice screencast! I think the screen size was little too small. Although the zooming effect was good. Try using 1024 X 748 resolution (I mean you have to record using that resolution). This will make everything big and easy to read. The audio sync problem is one of the issues that I also face.


#4 Ben Scheirman avatar
Ben Scheirman
5.14.2008
2:11 PM

This thing is already 120mb, doubling the size would have an adverse effect on the bandwidth, but I'll consider it in the future for shorter screencasts.I think limiting these to an hour is ideal.I certainly have a hard time watching a movie-length screencast :).


#5 Mohammad Azam avatar
Mohammad Azam
5.14.2008
4:01 PM

hi, Ohh I was actually talking about the size which was used to display the screen cast not the MB size of the movie. Also, if you record it at 16 bits high color then you will get much smaller MB size.


#6 netter avatar
netter
5.14.2008
5:23 PM

Long screencast but I kept on watching. I liked the way both of you talked about possible ways to implement it (passive view, presentation model, etc). Those where the same questions I stumpled upon when I tried to understand MVP and I am glad I am not the only one :) Thanks for you screencast, I am looking forward to your next cast.


#7 Ben Scheirman avatar
Ben Scheirman
5.14.2008
6:22 PM

Azam:I know what you mean, but I'd rather have high quality.The zooming thing was just to experiment.I'm not sure if I'll do it next time.


#8 Ike Casteleyn avatar
Ike Casteleyn
5.15.2008
3:23 PM

Hi,I was very interested in the screencast since I mailed with Chad about this a couple of weeks ago.I'm a total newbie at TDD.Same comment like azam I found it a bit hard to folow due to the zooming in and out. Perhaps a fixed resolution would have been better.Perhaps you could also upload the code somewhere. This way it would also be easier to follow. Code on screen1 and screencast on screen2.Those are my comments.Looking forward to the next screencast


#9 Ben Scheirman avatar
Ben Scheirman
5.15.2008
6:01 PM

I will upload the code tonight... sorry for missing that!


#10 Duncan avatar
Duncan
5.16.2008
5:14 AM

HiGreat screencast, there are times when you are talking and the screen doesn't really show the code well, the tools window seams to take a huge part of the screen sometimes.But it is great to see how you are both thinking about the issues and coding around, please could you make the screencast available for download?Please keep up the great work, and I look forward to the next screencast


#11 Ben Scheirman avatar
Ben Scheirman
5.16.2008
10:57 AM

Duncan,I'm looking into a better way to deliver these in more formats.


#12 mick avatar
mick
6.04.2008
4:48 PM

hi, gr8 screenacast, but unfortunately it kept stopping on 31 mins... i know u said ur were looking in to it but any chance of a download?