I met Richard Fennell face-to-face at The Typemock Partner Academy. In the morning, we had a nice discussion about what motivates developers, and later at the Academy he gave his presentation about how Typemock Isolator helps his business grow.
As he talked about using Isolator as a design tool, I finally understood his earlier post about the topic. Richard used Isolator not just for unit testing, but also to increase the development rate…and not the usual unit testing way.
Unit testing cuts down the entire SDLC, we all know that. But one of the complaints I sometimes hear is that the developer does not see the immediate benefit. That is, unless it’s used the way that Richard presented.
He uses Isolator to set up a simulated server that helps reveal the feedback much faster…without the entire compile, retract, publish and so on, with each step requiring you to take a coffee break. Instead of shaking from too much caffeine, you enjoy receiving feedback immediately. In the SharePoint developer’s life, those breaks accumulate into complete workdays. Using Isolator to speed up design can save significant work hours, and this removal of waiting time motivates developers further.
So that’s where IDD or Isolated Driven Design came from. It’s about speeding up development, using isolation from heavy, slow machinery (yes SharePoint, I’m looking at you).
“I have found the most productive use of Typemock Isolator with SharePoint is to use it to reduce the time of the F5 cycle (build/deploy/use). If you are using a VPC of some type to do your SharePoint development, as many do, this process can easily take a couple minutes, and these minutes add up..” Richard Fennell
