Ward Cunningham and the Fit Framework

Here is a nice quote by Jon Udell from his interview with Ward Cunningham:

There is a vast gulf between the process mappers who model business systems pictorially, and the programmers who grind out the C++ or Java or .Net services that support those business systems. Between the two camps lies a fertile land of opportunity. It's time to jointly explore it.

Famous for his contribution to XP, Ward Cunningham is - among a lot of other interesting things - working on the Fit Framework which he summarizes as being "about tests that people can read" ("people" here means all kind of people, not only developers).
The Fit Framework is worth a look as it proposes a way to easily associate the testers and the developers around unit testing. This is definitly a good approach reminding us that unit testing is not solely for developers, but should also be used to validate business rules expressed by people that have no development talents.

I think that this approach is a step forward in the land of opportunity that Cunningham is speaking about. The relationships between business and our technological world need a lot of smoothing. My guess is we will soon see many opportunities following the same path.

Update: Ward Cunningham has a weblog.