Note: this article was originally published on ProAgile’s blog
I only recently joined ProAgile and I feel we’ve got off to a great start. Last week my colleague Fredrik Wendt and I facilitated and hosted a Code Retreat event for a diverse group of software crafters from local companies.
It’s the 10th anniversary of the “Global Day of Code Retreat” event and there were over 150 locations around the globe holding one last week. It’s not the first time I’ve facilitated a Code Retreat but it is the first time I’ve done one in Gothenburg, (the others have been in Stockholm). This year Fredrik and I were keen to bring together some local people, and contribute to the community here. ProAgile has recently invested in a fantastic venue for courses and training at our offices, and we want to take full advantage of it.
We contacted several local companies and specifically invited them to advertise on the event sign up page that they were going to send people. We were delighted when Boeing (Jeppesen), Pagero, Meltwater, Spotify and Greenbyte all agreed to this. Their intention to participate I’m sure helped get the attention of other local software crafters when we put out a general invitation with open sign-ups.
In the end we were a very diverse group drawn from many local companies both large and small. We had a game designer who favoured C++, a Scala enthusiast, a Kotlin proponent, a Python trainer, several Javascript developers, a self-taught PHP and Python developer, a CEO who still codes occasionally, and many local Java, Python and C# developers. Everyone got to pair program with people from other language communities and backgrounds.
Fredrik and I decided to hold a standard code retreat event and based our planning on this article: “Structure of a Code Retreat”. We held 5 sessions working on the “Game of Life” Code Kata through the day. In each session, people work in pairs starting from an empty editor, and come up with a new solution to the problem. Between each session you hold a short retrospective with your pairing partner before taking a short break and switching to a different pairing partner.
In the morning sessions the focus is on getting to know the problem. We all try to find a good way to use Test-Driven Development and simple design rules to get a clean, understandable, flexible design. The sessions after lunch are about using this Game of Life exercise as a vehicle for trying out something new or otherwise challenging. We had some pairs using unfamiliar programming languages and environments. Some pairs were following strict design rules like ‘no if statements, no loops’ and ‘no function longer than 1 line’. Some people accepted the challenge to work on the problem as a mob; we were 4-6 people using one computer with me facilitating.
Throughout the day there were opportunities to reflect on the way we write code: how design guidelines and programming languages and Test-Driven Development and personal preferences all interact to influence the code we end up with. In normal project work with deadlines and tricky business rules and security constraints and so on, you might not get much time to consider the fundamentals of what good software design looks like. Test-Driven Development is a complex skill to learn – it has many facets. I think all programmers benefit from taking some time occasionally to work on practice exercises and discuss software design principles with peers.
At the end of the day we reflected all together in a closing circle. Everyone had the opportunity to say a few words to the group about what they were taking away with them. When you’ve spent time working on a Code Kata, I think there is a complexity gap you need to bridge – you want to carry over the principles and skills you gained from that simple exercise to your actual production code situation. It’s useful to think about what you’ve learnt and explain how you want to apply it later.
In the closing circle, I was happy to hear several positive comments about Test-Driven Development and an intention to use it more. Some people had seen a new programming language and had ideas about when it could be useful to them. Several people mentioned they appreciated the chance to program with people outside of their company and comfort zone. It was a good day, and I don’t think it will be the last such event we hold in Gothenburg.
If you’d like to know about the next events hosted by ProAgile, take a look at our course calendar, keep an eye on ProAgile’s social media channels and perhaps join one of our networking groups.
