Publications and talks
Talk on pyexpect at the Python Pizza Conference Berlin (February 2019)
pyexpect is an assertion library for Python that implements the expect(actual).to.match(expected) pattern for assertions in Python, known from the Ruby and JavaScript world.
I find that it leads to much clearer to read unit tests!
As an experiment I did without slides for the first time and gave the whole talk only with this Jupyter Notebook.
Talk at Python User Group Berlin about AC testing in Python (using Ruby) (November 2012).
On one project, we wrote the acceptance tests, which mainly automate one or more web browsers, in Ruby instead of Python because its browser automation tools are drastically better than in Python. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed to this day.
The video recording is unfortunately of poor quality.
BDD, TDD confusion of terms (20.4.2011)
I gave this talk at the Cocoa-Heads Berlin. The plan was to present Cedar, but unfortunately that didn't work out at short notice, so it became a rather general introduction to BDD, TDD and related topics. Interestingly, the audience wanted to spend most of my talk time on GUI testing. Well, the short version: Be aware that such tests quickly become very slow, if possible cover only the success cases and few important failure cases, be especially careful with UIs that are still changing as the tests can quickly become very exhausting to maintain, often it is relatively hard to find the bug in the program from a failing test. Plus: For legacy code it is often the easiest / only way to get any test coverage and through the GUI is of course the ultimate test from a user's point of view. Notes
Scrum in a Nutshell (21.1.2011 und 3.2.2011)
At the TU Berlin and for the GUUG I gave an introduction to the development methodology Scrum. Scrum in a nutshell
jQuery plugins and how to test them with jSpec (17.6.2010)
A talk without slides but with a lot of code. To be precise a example for the structure of a jQuery plugin and my jQuery Edit in Place plugin.
Liquid Democracy and Adhocracy (2.3.2010)
The Socialbar invited us to give a talk about Liquid Democracy and to introduce the concept there. For the first time I made an annotated slide deck for a better understanding of the slides online.
Liquid Democracy: Direct Parliamentarism - Binding Decisions Together (22.12.2009)
Datengarten Liquid Democracy (3.9.2009)
At the CCC Berlin, Daniel Reichert and I presented the concept of Liquid Democracy with direct parliamentarism to the public for the first time. Roughly summarized, the idea is to create a smooth transition between direct and parliamentary democracy that is no longer organized in parties but in thematic parliaments. With this you get an unbundling of political topics, so you don't have to swallow anymore if a party has a good and a bad point in their program. This is achieved by the possibility to vote directly on an issue if it is important enough for you, and the possibility to withdraw a delegation (today you would say "vote for a party") at any time if you don't feel represented by the party anymore.
Filesharing is Inevitable (18.3.2007)
My diploma thesis, which I wrote together with Andreas Janson in the Department of Computer Science and Society at the TU-Berlin.
"It's the end of the world as we know it - and I feel fine." - R.E.M.
Filesharing technologies make it possible for the first time to make all recorded knowledge accessible worldwide because they drastically reduce the cost of copying information. Much of the debate about file sharing to date has ignored this opportunity, instead highlighting alleged negative impacts that have yet to be scientifically proven. We look at this debate as computer scientists and note that the impact of file sharing on society can easily be misinterpreted without an understanding of the underlying technologies. Even the central term 'file sharing' is used in a wide variety of meanings, although it is clearly defined by the technology behind it. From the content industry's self-interested point of view, file sharing is primarily seen as a tool of 'pirates'. From this perspective, the music industry has taken numerous measures to combat Internet file sharing since the creation of Napster in 1999, of which we provide a comprehensive overview here for the first time. In its argumentation, it underplays the advantages that file-sharing networks offer to consumers: The Internet is superior to all other known networks in the distribution of content. It thus not only threatens the previous distribution monopoly of the four major record companies - it also enables a new form of production: production among equals. This gives rise to a potential for democracy of unprecedented quality. At the same time, it is becoming apparent that the intellectual property laws enacted at the insistence of the content industry do not do justice to the original task of intellectual property rights: They do not optimally promote the creation of intellectual property and make content harder to access. Ultimately, file-sharing technology also means that it is not possible to stop the sharing of copyrighted content. This would also make little sense from the point of view of society as a whole, because file sharing is the technical implementation of the norm of sharing, which represents the central paradigm of the knowledge society and will therefore become increasingly important in the future. Therefore, only one logical conclusion remains - to take advantage of file sharing as soon as possible.
Social innovation in the information society (8.11.2005)
On the occasion of the conference "Tatort Zukunft - klären, stärken, handeln" [Crime Scene Future - Clarify, Strengthen, Act] in [http://www.ev-akademie-boll.de/ Bad Boll], I gave a talk that was supposed to convey the central innovation of the information society compared to everything that came before. Since the participants were all very enthusiastic, I think it worked out quite well. :)
Perry Rhodan Game (21.9.2005)
As a (formerly) diligent Perry Rhodan reader, I really wanted to push a project that uses the VegaStrike engine for a Perry Rhodan game. Of course in OpenSource. To try it out, I gave a presentation at the C-Base.
Refactoring tools for C (5.2005)
This paper was written in the context of an event about refactoring and software visualization.
Trusted Computing Base and Digital Rights Management (5.2005)
At last a talk completely in English. Though that was also very new to me, so the writing is probably a bit bumpy. Anyway, here you go:
Customizability of software (5.2005)
Far too rare are does the TU have courses on 'task appropriateness' or usability. This one wasn't stellar either, but still.
Unit Testing with Objective C (5.8.2004)
I gave this talk at the CCC Berlin. Oh yes... at that time I just started with Unit Testing...
Web standards, how to make homepages
Back then, as a student, I was at a student company simulation Juniter and gave this presentation there on the design of the new homepage. Unfortunately, it has helped little...