12 local programmers, of varying experience, gathered at FP Towers and Joh talked us through the format for the event before we got down to tackling the first kata. I kicked off and managed to waste my allotted five minutes on setting up the project and putting in place some dodgy design decisions, despite my better half (Mr Roddis).
And we round-robinned from there. It was really great actually, driving home the cost of communication (we all had to explain what we were doing constantly), and giving me lots to think about. Interesting to see lots of different approaches to the same problem too - particularly the more lateral ones - and great to see a few folks who I only catch rarely these days.
I'm already looking forward to the next one, and firmly resolved never to shop at any Supermarket named Dallaway's ... ;)
Thanks again to Joh and Devi for sterling organisational efforts. It wouldn't have happened without you :)
Very neat...
Posted by: C. Enrique Ortiz | October 17, 2006 at 05:26 AM
I think it was more than simply the cost of communication. It was the cost of enforced communication in a setting where there were many people working on the same problem (broth involved), who were unfamiliar with working with each other, and who were not all completely expert with the environment or techniques.
It should be interesting to see whether this shifts slightly as people become more familiar with each other and the environment.
I'm certainly looking forward to the next one.
Posted by: joh | October 17, 2006 at 08:05 AM
I really enjoyed this - and it was a great example of how the journey is more important than the destination.
I.e. all we ended up with was a mess of half-finished and abandond classes, subclasses and interfaces, which could barely cope with adding the simplest items (and certainly couldn't handle wacky concepts like cherries sold in units of less than 1 kilo).
However, along the way, we all learnt tangible programming-type things (test-first methodology, Java 1.5 features, lots of Eclipse labour-saving goodness) and great intangibles about the value of communication, different approaches etc.
Thanks a lot to Johanna, Tom and the rest for organising this.
Posted by: Tristan Roddis | October 17, 2006 at 10:24 AM
I think it's perfectly reasonable for a supermarket to sell sausages by the kilo, but you're quite right... probably best if I stay out of food retailing :-)
A fascinating evening: thank you, all. I've no idea what it all means or how it really works or ought to work, but it's good stuff nonetheless.
Posted by: Richard Dallaway | October 17, 2006 at 02:43 PM
It's not a dojo unless someone is bleeding.
Posted by: Mark | October 17, 2006 at 05:27 PM
It's bleeding edge technology Mark.
Posted by: Dan | October 17, 2006 at 06:27 PM