[LRUG] Looking at the July LRUG (and also THE FUTURE (well, August anyway))

[Matt Wynne]

On 12 Jun 2009, at 13:20, Murray Steele wrote:

> 2009/6/12 Matt Wynne <matt at mattwynne.net>
> In general, I think it would be great to try and do something
> different. I would definitely be interested in a coding dojo, but
> probably don't know quite enough about them to run one successfully.
> I'll wrack my brains for other ideas too
>
> I'm happy to organise a dojo if that's something people would be up  
> for. I know there's been some concern about making it work with the  
> large numbers we get at LRUG, but I think we could make it work. My  
> plan would be to introduce the problem (and the randoori rules) to  
> the whole room, them split into groups to solve the same problem in  
> parallel randoori iterations. Finally we'd get everyone back  
> together at the end to review and discuss each other's solutions.
>
> We could do some stray poll of skill level to make sure each group  
> got a good balance of ninjas and newbies.
>
> What do you think?
>
> That sounds good to me.  Unless loads of folk are dead-set against  
> this I'll pencil it in for the August meeting.  That should give us  
> plenty of time to work out a problem and organise the mix of  
> skills.  The meeting will be on the 10th if it's a Monday or the  
> 12th if it's a Wednesday (which is most likely).
>
> Matt, would we need more than one person to guide the groups?  Do we  
> need one per group, or would two or three folk floating about making  
> sure each group is getting along, or just one person to introduce  
> the evening and let the groups get on with it?  The latter is what  
> we did when Tom Armitage ran some Kata's which worked well, but  
> there are less "rules" for a kata.

The rules are pretty simple, so I think we can confidently let each  
group take care of themselves once they've had the introduction, with  
one or two people (with machine guns, obviously) wandering between the  
groups just to keep an eye on things. Everyone at Songkick has plenty  
of experience with the format, so I can make sure to seed each group  
with at least one Songkicker to help things flow.

What we will need though is one projector per group and enough space  
that they can discus their approach to the problem independently of  
the other groups without getting distracted. Do you think that's  
possible?

For reference, the rules are basically:
   * The challenge is solved by the coding pair (driver and copilot)  
working on the projector.
   * Each pair has a small (5 or 7 minutes) timebox to advance, using  
TDD.
   * At the end of the timebox, the driver goes back to the audience,  
the copilot becomes driver and one of the audience step up to be co- 
pilot.
   * The audience can and are invited to help, but can only criticise  
the design or approach when the tests are green: heckling on red is  
verboten!

cheers,
Matt Wynne
http://songkick.com
http://blog.mattwynne.net