Dave has been developing hardware and software solutions for more than 20 years in domains ranging from environment control systems to electrical energy trading systems. For over 12 years he has been working exclusively with object technologies, and for 3 years he has been concentrating on Agile development practices, especially XP.
Dave has 6 years of Smalltalk experience (various flavours), at least 4 years of C++, and over 5 years of Java. After all that.. he's decided that Smalltalk does, indeed, rock and is again devoting himself to its mastery.
Dave ported Fit to Smalltalk.
Dave has been a CoadCertifiedMentor for TogetherSoft, where he spent most of his time running http://www.togethercommunity.com and learning & writing about java, patterns, extreme programming, Together, and other cool stuff.
Dave, along with GranvilleMiller and MiroslavNovak, wrote a book on XP (PracticalGuideToExtremeProgramming) which was published in Feb 2002 by Prentice Hall.
Dave's latest book is on test-driven development using Java (TestDrivenDevelopmentaPracticalGuide). It was winner of the 2004 Jolt Award for technical book.
Dave founded with PatrickWelsh at AdaptionSoftware, a small XP-focused training and consulting shop in Nova Scotia, Canada.
In late July, 2004 Dave left Adaption in Pat's capable hands and moved on to ThoughtWorks.
In Feb 2005, Dave left ThoughtWorks to stay on as an independant consultant at DiamlerChrysler? as an architect and process/practice mentor.
You can contact Dave at mailto:dastels@daveastels.com
Dave is currently blogging at www.daveastels.com
-- DaveAstels