Back from CodeMash 2010

I just got back from a great experience at CodeMash 2010. This was my first CodeMash, and it will certainly not be my last. If you're a software developer and you've never gone to a CodeMash, I can't recommend it enough. (If you're a developer and you've already gone, I don't have to say anything because I know you'll be going back.) Besides all the technical goodness, there was lots of fun!

If you're not familiar with CodeMash, its home page describes it as a unique two (or optionally three) day event:

"... that will educate developers on current practices, methodologies and technology trends in variety of platforms and development languages such as Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP. Held [in] January, at the lush Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio, attendees will be able to attend a world-class technical conference amid Ohio's largest indoor waterpark.

There were also sessions on career development, TDD/BDD, Agile/Lean/Kanban methodologies, dynamic languages like F# and Scheme, development for mobile platforms like iPhone and Android, and too many more for me to list here. See the session list for more, and for detailed writeups and presenter bios.

This year, there were three keynote addresses and loads of software-development-related sponsors, the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Compuware, RedGate, and ComponentOne gave talks, demonstrations, held raffles and gave away lots of swag.

But some of the most valuable experiences come from talking with other developers in the hallways, between sessions, at open space meetings organized by participants based on their interests, in the Coding Dojo room, and at the cocktail party.

I mentioned that CodeMash is two or optionally three days. They call the optional third day events, held the day before the official conference opens, the PreCompiler. The PreCompiler Sessions are 4 hour, hands-on, interactive labs. That's not to say that if you only attend the main conference you won't have a chance to sit down at a machine and try somethings out, but interactive sessions at the main conference are shorter (only about an hour) and tended to be less in-depth.

I attended 2 PreCompiler sessions, "The Ruby Koans, Learning Ruby One Test at a Time with Joe O'Brien and Jim Weirich" and "Practical T/BDD - Half Day Hands-on Lab with Phil Japikse"

I'll tell about these in subsequent blog posts.

Grand Rapids CodeRetreat ... but it's in Ruby

I'm a big fan of CodeRetreat. Besides being a fun day, it's a great way to practice agile things like: pair programming, supportive environment, software craftsmanship, TDD, retrospectives, courage, and so on. I think they are great events for both aspiring Agilists and experienced Agilists.

I read Jeremy Anderson's blog post about an upcoming CodeRetreat in Grand Rapids. I was all set to go when I read that it will be held in Ruby, and since I haven't used Ruby, I was discouraged. As much as I'd like to try it, I'm not sure how much time I'll have in my schedule before then.

Then I found TryRuby. It offers an interactive Ruby prompt and a follow-along tutorial, right in your browser! And there's another tutorial I found, Ruby in Twenty Minutes .

So I guess I'll have to revisit the sessions I planned to attend this week at CodeMash 2010 and see if there are beginner Ruby sessions. Perhaps, between them and some extra work during downtime, I'll pick up enough Ruby to feel comfortable attending the Grand Rapids Code Mash next month.

What is agile communication?

In thinking about some things for the Agile Skills Project, I realized that agile teams communicate differently than non-agile teams.

It seems to me that agile communication aims to be:

• public (vs private or secret) [public within the entire team, not public as in news media]
  
• early (vs delayed)
• spoken, preferably in person (vs email)
• free from judgment (vs assigning blame)
• osmotic (vs selectively broadcast)
• flat (vs hierarchical)
  

A significant enabler of agile communication is the Supportive Environment Agile Pillar.

What characteristics of agile communications do you notice?

Why we say: "No Best Practices"

I came across an great article from 2005 titled: No Best Practices and it reminded me that there was some discussion about the term "best practice" at the recent 1DevDay event.

Besides speaking to reasons why we say there are no best practices, James Bach gives a nice list of "simple, honest alternatives":

• “Here’s what I would recommend for this situation.”
• “Here is a practice I find interesting.”
• “Here is my favorite practice for dealing with {x}.”
• “{Person X} attributes {practice Y} for his success. Maybe you’d like to learn about it.”

as well as a list of answers to common replies to his argument, replies like:

• “I don’t mean ‘best practice’ literally. I’m just suggesting that this is a damn good practice.”
• “When I said this practice is a ‘best practice’ I meant it was best for a certain context. But pretty much everyone in the industry shares that context, so what’s the point of talking about context?”
• “This practice represents a consensus among industry leaders.”
• “Lighten up. It’s just an expression.”

It really helped me get clear about why we say: "No Best Practices".

My (growing) Agile Booklist

In no particular order, here are the agile books currently in my bookcase:

• Practices of an Agile Developer, by Venkat Subramaniam and Andy Hunt
• Clean Code, by (Uncle) Bob Martin
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, by Martin Fowler
• Test Driven Development: By Example, by Kent Beck
• Working Effectively with Legacy Code, by Michael Feathers
• Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#, by: Martin C. Robert & Martin Micah

CodeRetreat 12-5-09 LeanDog

I'm looking forward to attending CodeRetreat 12-5-09.
It's a free event, sponsored by and held at LeanDog. If you aren't familiar with the idea of a Code Retreat, as promoted by my friend Patrick Wilson Welsh, take a look at his description here.

Briefly, it's an event where agile software developers get together and pair program several solutions to a practice program, with the goal of honing our craft and furthering learning and discussion (Think software kata.) The event hits 5 of the 7 agile skill pillars proposed by the Agile Developer Skills Project:
* Collaboration
* Supportive Culture
* Confidence
* Technical Excellence
* Self-Improvement

I attended the previous LeanDog CodeRetreat and it was great! Lots of talented developers, great practice and learning, tech talks and a party-like atmosphere.

LeanDog's location is amazing. Their website describes says:

Our office is floating in downtown Cleveland right next to the U.S.S. Cod (a WWII Submarine), the Burke Lakefront Airport, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We are located on a converted steamship, the Keasarge, that was formerly known as Hornblower’s Barge and Grill. The restaurant setting remains and offers open spaces that are perfect for practicing Agile. Our location gives a great view of the skyline of the city we support.

We'll be coding in Java again, but if you want to learn or practice pairing and you don't know Java, don't let that stop you. That was my situation last time and it was still a great experience!

CodeMash 2010

I've registered for CodeMash 2010
January 14-15, 2010 in Sandusky, OH

There are several agile sessions scheduled:

- Agile Iteration 0 by Ken Sipe
- An Agile Toolchain for Flex RIAs by James Ward
- Credit Crunch Code – Time to Pay Back the Technical Debt by Gary Short
- Domain-Driven Design: An Introduction by Barry Hawkins
- Seeing Constraints, Kanban Explained by Jon Stahl
- Testing the Enterprise by Leon Gersing and Charley Baker
- User Stories: Closing the Agile Loop by Barry Hawkins

Wednesday is an optional Precompiler session(full registration required to attend). The agile topics that day are:
- Practical T/BDD - Half Day Hands-on Lab by Phil Japikse
- Test Driven Development: From Concept to Deployment with Leon Gersing (all day)

There are loads of sessions that aren't specifically about agile but look great anyhow. According to the CodeMash site:

More than 45 sessions will be held, spread across the following tracks:

* Architecture: SOA, W3C Standards, WS* Implementations, Interoperability and all things 30,000 foot or higher.
* Desktop Development: Standalone Applications, Fat/Smart Client, Client/Server and all things running local on Windows, Mac or your favorite Linux distribution.
* Web Development: Web services, Ajax, frameworks, and all things related to the browser.
* Methodologies: Anything pertinent to how modern development methodologies help build software faster, cheaper, and with less grief.
* Mobility: All things mobile: platforms, devices, content distribution, social networking, community building, and anything else used in conjunction with those devices which have little screens.
* Languages: What's new and cool in languages such as C#, Java, PHP, Python, PHP, Ruby? Of course there are other languages which we've omitted from this list for reasons of space but don't mean to offend their feelings.

and since one of the seven pillars is Self Improvement, why not attend and check out what interests you or what you think might help your team? And the cost for the conference is very low (see below.)

Details:
CodeMash 2010 will be held January 13-15, 2010 in Sandusky, OH at Kalahari Resort, America's largest indoor water park

Early Bird discount $175 until Nov 30
Regular $220 until Jan 7, 2010
Procrastinator $300