code-retreat-training-notes.md

Global Day Code Retreat Facilitaor training

• Code retreat structure to follow:

  • 6 sessions
  • 45 mins coding + 5 min retro
  • Final retro at the end

• Introduction:

  • Open question: "What is good code? " -> quick discussion, people will end up mentioning 4 rules of sinle design
  • mention 4 rules of simple design
  • Ask attendes about skills so you get an idea what kind of audience to expect. Just hangs up in the air: "how knows TDD?" , "how is confidence with it?"..

• Promote strong community

  • Encourage people to talk to each other

• Coding Exercise

  • Always same problem - Conways game of life
  • Goal: write best piece of code. Don't focuse on solving the problem. - The why?
  • Switch partners: learn from different people

• Days before the event

  • Sent reminder to atendes to bring own laptoos with tools and IDEs setup
  • Info about CGoF . Link to video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE

• Event day

  • tell everybody to setup everything before first session: wifi, turn on laptop..
  • Cyber dojo could be a "backup" for attendees with no IDE setup: http://www.cyber-dojo.org/
  • Don't let the projector on while sessions: makes people passive

• Possible sessions

  • First session: No constrains
  • Good for afternoon: requirements change. Stop in the middle of the session and change rules - new requirements. zombie cells / colour cells/ 3d board -> reflect how flexible their code is. the goal of craftsman is to make change inexpensive, not beautiful code.
  • short methods (3/5 lines), good naming
  • no primitives
  • mute pingpong (Evil pair vs Naive pair vs Cooperative pair.) - just pairs. both know the language well. At the end remaind people to keep comments for the end. Not last session.
  • shot commits (every 3-5 mins code should be green and commited or git reset) -Retro
  • Arrange space for retro.
  • walk away from the computers - break from the session
  • everybody see everybody
  • Attendes should talk to each other, not you (facilitator)
    • Facilitator: ask question and then "walk away"
    • Facilitator: stand in a different place each time
  • ask open questions - do not ask not yes/no question.
  • just a joke about the constrain

• Big retro

  • Everybody should answer these 3 questions:
    • What if anything you learn today
    • What if anything Surpised you today
    • What would you be taking to your work place from today? What would you do different?
  • Encourage to give short answers.

• Facilitator: you are like air that fills the room. Without you the event is not psossible, but you should be transparent, the less they notice you are there the better. Attendes should learn from each other.