

Global Day of Coderetreat December 3rd - coreyhaines
http://coderetreat.com/global_day.html

======
searls
Participating in a Code Retreat is one of the wisest investments a developer
can make in their career. Depending where you're at on your journey, attending
a day-long Code Retreat could significantly change your life.

If you're relatively new to the agile/xp/software craftsmanship community, you
get:

\- As good an overview of test-driven development and simple design as you're
likely to find anywhere.

\- An introduction to people in your community who are probably themselves
excellent software developers and who can support both your learning and your
professional network.

If you're already experienced in TDD/BDD, Code Retreat is great for:

\- Humbling you. It's a rigorous exercise, and a lot of its value is derived
from the emphasis that no one take any shortcuts—it's great for identifying
and tackling one's own bad habits.

\- Its low-pressure environment. There is expressly _no_ expectation that you
"finish" with a working implementation. This frees you up to nurture or
reclaim your own vision of what an "ideal" design is by focusing on perfecting
just a small aspect of the problem.

\- Pairing with extremely bright people on a challenging problem; because so
few of the solutions are obvious, Code Retreat is actually great communication
practice.

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feral
[http://coderetreat.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-a-
coderetreat...](http://coderetreat.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-a-coderetreat-
works) gives an introduction to the format. I hope to attend the next one, in
Dublin, Ireland.

I'm a little skeptical about the format though.

You develop in 45 minute long cycles, and must delete your code at the end of
the 45 minutes.

However, you are supposed to use test driven development.

I'm a little skeptical of TDD in general - I see advantages to the process,
although suspect its oversold.

But TDD for a 45 minute development window? Does this really make any sense?

It seems to me that it'd end up more as a practice of writing tests quickly,
rather than a practice of coding. Why do you need the agility that tests
bring, in a 45 minute window?

I guess I'll find out on the 3rd!

Does anyone that's done this before, want to give me the benefit of their
experience?

~~~
DanielRibeiro
TDDing your way and deleting afterwards is common kata practice. You can see
Uncle bob doing this on this video[1].

Uncle Bob[2] is, among many other things, the creator of fitnesse[3].

Interesting enough, he is a bit critical of the Software Craftmanship
movement[4,5], which is sponsoring this code retreat.

[1] <http://vimeo.com/7762511>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Bob>

[3] <https://github.com/unclebob/fitnesse>

[4] <http://cleancoder.posterous.com/stub6-restoring-the-trust>

[5] [http://cleancoder.posterous.com/software-craftsmanship-
thing...](http://cleancoder.posterous.com/software-craftsmanship-things-wars-
commandmen)

~~~
Jose_GD
Daniel, why are you saying Uncle Bob is a bit critical of the SC movement? In
links 4 and 5 he express quite the contrary, he's defending firmly his belief
in craftsmanship.

~~~
DanielRibeiro
At the end of the first video(here[1]) he says:

 _There is a danger here of a rift: what we don't want is separate
movements... What we want is a reunification. What we really want is a return
to the values that started this whole thing_

Which is a criticism. Granted, it is a harder critic on the Agile movement
than on the Software Craftsmanship (it essentially means that Agile forgot the
Software Craftsmanship along the way, and it needs it back).

Which seems to me like a bit of a dated discussion, as those pushing
Agile[2,3,4] to the next Level are well aware of this issue, and are not
falling pray to it.

[1] <http://cleancoder.posterous.com/stub6-restoring-the-trust>

[2] <http://yfrog.com/h3qqxdij>

[3] [http://www.slideshare.net/HackerChick/lean-startup-how-
devel...](http://www.slideshare.net/HackerChick/lean-startup-how-development-
looks-different-when-youre-changing-the-world-agile-2011)

[4] [http://agile.dzone.com/news/10-years-later-
what%E2%80%99s-ne...](http://agile.dzone.com/news/10-years-later-
what%E2%80%99s-next)

~~~
Jose_GD
Daniel, what he's criticizing is not Agile as a movement, rather a group of
people who bastardized Agile, giving lip service to its values. For example
the people who made lucrative business with Scrum certifications leaving
professionalism behind.

~~~
DanielRibeiro
Yes, but he is also saying that we don't need two movements. Software
Craftsmanship is there in the Manifesto. But the industry around Agile is
oblivious to it. This is his voice.

My opinion is that even though he is right, the second movement is great to
make people reflect and realize that we Craftsmanship is an integral part of
Agile.

I am not saying that his critique is bad: we are only here because of lack of
critiques, and a thoughtful application of Agile[1]

[1] [http://agilefocus.com/2011/02/21/agiles-second-chasm-and-
how...](http://agilefocus.com/2011/02/21/agiles-second-chasm-and-how-we-fell-
in/)

------
john_p_wood
I went to a code retreat back in July. It was a great experience, and I would
highly recommend it. You can read about my experience at
[http://johnpwood.net/2011/07/29/what-i-learned-by-
attending-...](http://johnpwood.net/2011/07/29/what-i-learned-by-attending-a-
code-retreat/)

------
fharper1961
There are 2 taking place in Paris, on the same day of course :(.

This one is "sold out" <http://paris-globaldayofcoderetreat-
autohome.eventbrite.com/>

But, I think this one can still be attended
[http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/global-day-of-
coderetreat...](http://coderetreat.ning.com/events/global-day-of-coderetreat-
paris)

------
tooky
I'd definitely recommend getting along to one if you can.

Here's why: [http://tooky.github.com/2010/03/17/why-i-think-you-should-
go...](http://tooky.github.com/2010/03/17/why-i-think-you-should-go-to-a-
coderetreat.html)

------
coreyhaines
Really excited for this. Going to be a fantastic day of practice, community
and fun!

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Arie
I'll be attending the one in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Hopefully every event
gets a great Corey Haines substitute, because he made the code retreat in
Amsterdam last year an awesome learning experience.

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qollin
There're a couple in Germany. The one in Bielefeld has still open seats
available :-)

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marcjeanson
Winnipeg (Canada) is representing! This will be our 3rd code retreat this
year.

~~~
ctataryn
Looking forward to it! Probably going to use Scala or Clojure

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blah_blah
Dublin, Ireland :D the second one this year. Yay!

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aggarwalachal
its in Delhi too... #win

