software_craftsmanship Google Group

Re: [SC] Re: What did you learn in 2009?

adew...@gmail.com (Adewale Oshineye) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:41:15 UT

2010/1/3 Spencer Turner <spencer.tur...@googlemail.com >:
Spencer,
Please mention it anyway. Stuff that may be inconsequentially 'white
belt' to you may be new to other people.

Re: [SC] Re: What did you learn in 2009?

spencer.tur...@googlemail.com (Spencer Turner) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:41:05 UT

Hi All,
I am new to the community, but I thought I'd try and share what I have
learned this year.
1) Being surrounded by people who know far more than you *and* are willing
to share that knowledge is a great way to learn.
2) The lessons I am learning through my apprenticeship are great lessons to
pass on to my young son as life skills.

Re: [SC] Knowledge Transfer.

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:49:27 UT

I really like Pair Programming and TDD to teach and learn. Also
concrete problems to solve usually makes the process faster vs demo
code because the problem domain is known and much bigger than a demo
would be. So there is more information to base certain descisions on.
Re commit comments: they are valuable in a sence to rethink what you

Re: [SC] Knowledge Transfer.

pierre.ros...@gmail.com (Pierre Rosado) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:09:05 UT

Hi Enrique, thanks for answering.
To start a brainstorming I have the following question for every
master/journeyman interested: *What is your teaching methodology?*
I am proudly an apprentice [ ;) ]. So, allow me to make some specualtions:
I've noticed that TDD seems to be very suitable to learn/teach programming.

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:07:05 UT

Hi Knut,
Thanks for the feedback, I'll contact you of the list as well. Nice
post btw [link]
-Mark

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

knuth...@gmail.com (Knut Haugen) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:07:32 UT

My impression is that being an independant consultant (in software
development) is less common in Norway than in the US. It is quite common (in
Oslo) among photographers and graphic designers (I know three) but again my
impression is that the Oslo marked for development services is dominated by
the medium to large consulting firms.

Re: What did you learn in 2009?

adew...@gmail.com (Adewale Oshineye) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:02:13 UT

2009/12/28 Adewale Oshineye <adew...@gmail.com>:
I should probably answer my own question. I've written a blog post:
[link] with
more detail but essentially 2009 was the year where I learned:
- that the Agile movement has jumped the shark.
- that many of my tools/techniques (including TDD and automated

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

ssmith.li...@gmail.com (Steven Smith) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:30:00 UT

Our apprentices are typically part-time, at least during the school
year, so you can have 2:1 but only if you schedule them such that
they're not all there at the same time. The main thing you want to
avoid is apprentices pairing with other apprentices, at least when
you're first getting them up to speed and trying to get them using the

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:22:30 UT

I will definitely take you up on your offer to discuss the 'scene', thanks.
-Mark

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:17:12 UT

Only downside with it is that BEKK is in Oslo where as we where
thinking about Sweden, but this is not set in stone. Also I would
imagine (but I can ask this) that the opportunities to pair with Aslak
are now quite a bit lower now that he is Chief Scientist vs project
member :)
ThoughtWorks; Yes you would imagine so :) (ah just saw Ola's e-mail so

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

ola.ellnes...@gmail.com (Ola Ellnestam) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:15:33 UT

I run a small company in Stockholm, Sweden called Agical. We used to share
offices with ThoughtWorks Sweden for a while but unfortunately enough, to my
knowledge, it's just Ola (Bini) these days and they don't even have a
physical office any more.
The climate in Scandinavia is pretty decent when it comes to Software

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

dave.hoo...@gmail.com (Dave Hoover) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:05:10 UT

If you have the opportunity to work with Aslak, I would pursue it. He
has been a good friend and a prolific open source contributor over the
years. I've learned a lot from pairing with him and watching how he
approaches his projects.
Regarding ThoughtWorks Sweden, I'm not sure of its status. I believe

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:59:41 UT

Hi Dave,
BEKK is one of the companies that I meant that would be a very good
step into the right direction, and if we would stay in Norway would
probably be my first choice. I met Aslak when I invited him to do a
Cucumber talk to our local NNUG (a very interesting and knowledgeable
person indeed). ThoughtWorks is a very interesting company as well,

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:38:12 UT

Hi Steven,
I didn't receive your direct e-mail?
So you would say there is a 1 to 1 relation between apprentice and
mentor? I would have thought a 2 to 1, but I see your point there as
well. I would like to have the apprentices pair as well as this would
be good as well.
Others,
Thanks for your input and links! I will have to think much more about

Re: [SC] Challenges for a software craftsmanship shop start-up

mark.nij...@gmail.com (Mark Nijhof) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:17:32 UT

I love that quote!
-Mark
On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Torbjörn Gyllebring