Phillip Trelford's Array

At Trayport we’re serious about quality, and are now hiring for a software developer in test.

You…

• Are enthusiastic about building automated tests that help continuous delivery of exceptional quality software.
• Are skilled with .NET and have strong development and debugging abilities, with knowledge of test frameworks and design patterns.
• Love to work in lean and agile environments, delivering software through TDD, ATDD and BDD.
• Want to work in a team of talented technologists who will challenge and inspire you.

We…

• Have a track record of delivering high quality software the energy trading industry depends on.
• Have a Joel Test score of 11 of 12.
• Offer a great benefits package including healthcare, gym membership, bonus scheme and a well-stocked kitchen.
• Hold regular social events for the whole company, including an annual weekend away.

What can we offer you?

• Good spec hardware, access to a decent library and an office with top facilities.
• A relaxed environment which includes a casual dress code, regular tech talks, hackathons and opportunities to attend top conferences.
• Flexible working hours and paid-for home PC and broadband.
• An induction period to get you up to speed with our business and a buddy to make sure your questions are answered.

What will you be doing?

• As part of one of the three software teams at Trayport, you’ll automate the testing of top-of-class trading software – both front ends and servers.
• Have the responsibility and flexibility to choose and develop tools and technology required to enable the team to continuously deliver high quality software.
• Contributing to the whole spectrum of automated testing from end-to-end UI tests to improving and refactoring unit tests along with promoting good practice to the rest of the team.
• Experience work on a range of features and products, helping the team produce top quality tested code and have a say in all areas across the business.

Trayport was founded in 1993 and now has around 200 employees, we’re proud of our small company feel but boast a global vision. Our range of clients spans household energy companies, banks, hedge-funds and regulation bodies – providing Windows-based front-ends and servers to facilitate all aspects of trading. We’ve recently moved to top-class offices in a great City location – if you’re interested in what you’ve read, apply today by letting us know how you can help shape our future.

Email me: phillipt@trayport.com with your CV (no recruiters please).

I’m heading home on the geek train back from a cracking DDD North, this year held in Sunderland and attracting 430 attendees and three well attended F# talks.

I managed to deliver the first pony of the day in F# eye for the C# Guy:

Starting with live samples of immutable classes in C# and then in F# using the class and record syntax. Then instantiating the classes via the F# interactive (REPL) window and from C# which simply requires a reference to the F# library project, it’s all .Net IL underneath.

Then we moved on to unit testing in F# using a selection of libraries from Nuget including NUnit, FsUnit and Unquote. On the unit testing theme Ian Cooper gave a talk on TDD, where did it all go wrong at the same time which was well received.

Leading on from unit testing we took a look at automated acceptance testing with TickSpec, and how this was used in the open source spreadsheet Cellz.

Finally for fun I showed a couple of FunScript samples including the Mario Tutorial (only working in IE at the moment) and a Pacman Sample. FunScript is an open source F# to JavaScript compiler with a Type Provider to TypeScript type definition files which provides typed access to common JavaScript libraries.

If you’re interested in picking up F# I’d recommend trying the F# Koans (where you can pick up the syntax while making a set of tests pass), the online Try F# site, and the F# Tutorial project in Visual Studio.

Hadoop Kickstarter

Next up in the same room Gary Short gave a great introduction to Hadoop and some of the related tools like Pig.

If you’re interested in trying out Hadoop with F# check out the Hadoop Type Provider online on the Try F# site which gives you typed access with intellisense:

WTFP?! Functional Programming and why you should care, with examples in F#

Before lunch Grant Crofton gave a great introduction to functional programming with F# using lots of live code snippets in Visual Studio

Grant also managed to slip some ASCII art into his scripts :)

Lightning talks

Lunch time saw a selection of lightning talks including Ben Nunney on Twillio and Anthony Steele on Feature Folders which emphasised the importance of focusing on the problem domain in your architecture.

The Joy of Wires: an introduction to Netduino

After lunch I popped over to see Iain Angus’s lively talk on Netduino which showed how much fun it can be playing with electronics.

You've learnt the basics of F#: What's next?

The last session of the day for me was Ian Russell’s fun talk which covered a selection of F# Type Providers for typed data access and F# Agents for taming concurrency.

Ian demonstrated the SQL, CSV, JSON and World Bank type providers all available either bundled with F# or via Nuget. For F# agents he showed a simple chat server that he ran from F# interactive using a local web server.

You can get the samples from Ian’s github repository: DDDNorth F# Presentation

Testing Crap in Web Applications Like ASP.Net MVC

The last pony of the day was spotted in Rob Ashton’s talk/rant which unfortunately I missed as it was on at the same time as Ian’s:

Close

Hanging out at the close with my fellow F#ers, Ian and Grant:

A big thanks to the DDD North team especially Andy Westgarth for hosting a great event!

Last week saw the second Progressive F# Tutorials in New York held at the Dumbo loft, a great venue in Brooklyn literally under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The tutorials ran over 2 days with 2 keynotes:

1. F# in an Open Source World – Don Syme, Microsoft Reseach
2. F# Beyond Windows – Miguel De Icaza, Xamarin & Mono

F# is an open source language with a strong open source community and in his keynote Don talked about how companies and individuals are leveraging F#.

Miguel’s keynote focused on F# in Mono, and how it is now a built-in language in Xamarin Studio allowing F# to target Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and a host of other platforms.

Tracks

The core of the Tutorials is 4 x 4hr deep dive tutorials spread across 2 tracks catering for both beginners and more experienced F# users. This year I teamed up with Rachel Reese and Mathias Brandewinder for 3 sessions on the beginners track.  

F# Koans

The first beginner session was the F# Koans with Chris Marinos which is a great introduction to the language. The F# Koans are a set of failing tests that you implement progressively to learn new aspects of the language.

    [<Koan>]
    let ModifyingTheValueOfVariables() =
        let mutable x = 100
        x <- 200
        AssertEquality x __

In the example above you would write in the expected value for x.

Try F#

In this session lead by Rachel Reese we worked through tutorials on the Try F# site while discussing commercial uses of F#, particularly in Finance

Machine Learning

This session introduced F# in the context of Machine Learning, exploring data sets using a CSV type provider and the REPL. Mathias covered Naive Bayes using a set of text messages to classify as Ham or Spam, while l walked through a Decision Tree based classifier applied to a dataset for the Titanic:

Pacman Kata

The last session of the day was a Pacman Kata which culminated in creating your own behaviour for the Ghosts (or Pacman) inside a WPF version of the game using an API developed by Mathias.

Calling and Extending the F# Compiler

Tomas Petricek and Don Syme gave a deep dive session on the F# compiler. Tomas provided a set of samples that show how to embed the F# compiler into your own applications. During the session I began embedding the F# compiler into my open source spreadsheet project Cellz, so that as well as spreadsheet functions you can write F# expressions inline too:

Next up

The next Progressive F# Tutorials event will be in London on Oct 31 – Nov 1 where we will be returning to the Crypt.

If you’re interested in coming along to the New York event next year Skills Matter have a great early bird discount on at the moment.