Meet the Speaker: Chris Cundill.
What’s your session topic?
The title of my talk is “releaseflow: a healthy build, release and deploy process”. I’ll be using this opportunity to demonstrate a real, live example of Continuous Delivery which will be suitable for both newbies to CI/CD and to those who are hardened travellers down that road. We’ll watch a code change make it’s way through a CI/CD pipeline all the way through to production live during the talk! We’ll discuss how we can apply practices that facilitate continuous delivery in our everyday work. We’ll also discuss the releaseflow.org branching strategy and why it’s superior to alternatives such as gitflow.
Why is your topic important?*
Each software team desires to deliver value to their customers early and often. The reality that teams face is often quite different. This topic is important since we’ll identify what constitutes a healthy build, release and deploy process. We’ll chat about changes that will get your team delivering more. We’ll expose the things that are toxic and must be addressed. We’ll challenge the status quo.
What are the prerequisites the audience should have for attending your session?
It will be helpful if attendees for this session already work within a software development team in some capacity; whether that be in a supporting role such as Agile Coach, Business Analyst or Product Owner, or an active role such as Software Engineer, Ops or QA. However, they’ll be something for everyone so feel free to come along even if you’re new to the industry!
How long have you been in this industry?
Over 14 years :)
What is one of those things you wish you knew when you started out in this industry?
How awesome it was going to be! Seriously, there’s so much to learn in this industry. You’ll never have to lack motivation to get out of bed in the morning.
Have you spoken at or attended SwanseaCon before?
Yes, I spoke at the first two SwanseaCon events but didn’t manage to submit something last year due to time commitments. The first year I gave an introduction to the Scala language. The second year I performed a dual act with my friend Greg Simons for a talk entitled “Get your head in the Clouds”.
What made you want to speak at SwanseaCon this year?
A couple of reasons; the first is that I wanted to speak about releaseflow.org and Continuous Delivery since it’s a subject I’ve been passionate about for years. Second, I’m massively invested in the tech scene in Swansea and would love to see a rise in the innovation and craftsmanship of software here in my home town.
Are there any sessions other than your own which you are looking forward to at SwanseaCon?
Definitely! It looks like a genuinely great lineup! Here’s a few I plan on attending:
- “How to build products people care about” by Monira & Oli from Thoughtworks
- “How to parse a file” by Matt Ellis from Jetbrains
- “Testcontainers for Real Integration Tests” by Philip Krenn from Elastic
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