Despite the large amount of noise on twitter, it can be an amazing source of information. If you use the right application to filter the twitter feeds then it could become an invaluable way of connecting with people and finding information about things that interest you.
Myself and Neil Rees spent some time trying to get IronPythonStudio working within Visual Studio 2008 so we can get testing frameworks up and running whilst also making using of the .net work going on here at iMeta.
We visited Python forums, VS forums, we Googled and we visited some of the most respected .net and Python sites there are...yet we were stumped. Nothing. We found some good ideas that weren’t right, some dead ends, some complete red herrings and a couple of dead links, but we didn’t find the answer. We downloaded, installed, updated and explored our way to finally compiling, only to find it failed. The compiler was using version 1 of IronPython, we were using version 2.6. Stumped.
We were ready to give up when I remembered someone I follow on twitter is a Python programmer. So we pinged him a message and within 2 minutes he responded with a definitive, “Does not work” with associated links to IDEs that might help.
Well, at least we now know that Ironpythonstudio integration with VS doesn’t work. Boo. And for the record, here is the link to some other IDE tools for ironpython/python development : http://www.voidspace.org.uk/ironpython/tools-and-ides.shtml
But the important lesson learned was that twitter, despite the noise, is becoming a very valuable way of finding answers. It’s not the first time someone has answered a questions for me on twitter, but it is the first time it’s been so quick.
Twitter may not be the answer to all of the problems we face, in some circumstances it can be the cause, but it is a valuable place to go for information. And if we look at twitter as another medium of gathering and sharing information we find it can sit very nicely alongside blogs, books and good old Google search.
In the testing world Testuff have just announced a twitter integration for reporting and results, the first one I have seen bundled with a test management tool. There are now loads of new testing lists being created with the new twitter lists feature, including our very own iMeta Testing list. Most of the prominent thinkers in testing are on twitter too sharing their knowledge, more often than not at the expense of their regular blog posts. Wefollow is a good place to start looking for people under various different directories. The testing one has quite a good list too. A few people here at iMeta are on the C# list…. well, Neil is.
You don't even need an account to read the twitter feeds or to find out what your industry guru(s) are saying. You can just tune in and read along. Just find a hashtag and see what's happening.
You never know....you might find it useful.
Rob..