Agile, agile, everywhere ...

My book is now listed by Amazon for being released October, 31th. The final version has 432 pages ... I think this is the best size for this topic -- not too thin like a newspaper, not too big like a blather tome.

The last days I gave some seminars. The seminars discussed tools and agile processes I have also written about in my book: firstly a seminar about agile testing of Java Swing applications using TestNG, JUnit, EMMA, EasyMock, CruiseControl, Ant and Jemmy. The seminar was good received and gave me some insight in interesting participant projects. Another seminar was Maven 2. In two days we set up a repository working with JUnit 3, JUnit 4, Checkstyle, JavaDocs, remote and local repositories ..., generated a customized site ... and had a lot of fun.

It is so important that you choose the right tools for your project. There is no "golden hammer", a set of tools that fits everywhere. Every project is different. In one project Ant may be best in another project Maven. One project may profit most from CruiseControl others from Continuum or TeamCity. There is not the one and only infrastructure ... but a tool set of very good de facto standard tools.

... and yes! "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" is the first value pair of the Agile Manifesto. Humans are working in projects, different characteristics you have to bring together to build up a real team. A team where all respect and help each other, where is no room for vanity fair, for persons always wanting to be in the limelight. If you have a team and the right tools, you have a very big chance to finish your IT project very successfully.