Bring the dojos to our workplaces

[Philip Graf]

Hi everyone,

on the way home from our last Scala Meetup where we talked about how we
could improve the user group meetings I had the following idea: what if
we bring the dojos to our workplaces? By this i mean we hold each dojo
at a different company and invite our coworkers to join us.

My guess is that everyone of us has some colleagues who are also
interested in Scala (I know I have) but haven't found the way to our
group yet. This would make it easy for them to join us for a first dojo.
And that's how they get hooked ;-).

A nice side effect could be that we raise awareness of Scala. I think it
might have a positive effect if our coworkers see that there are people
from many different companies interested in Scala.

At the very least we gain new members for our user group. And maybe,
with help of the raised awareness, one of us can convince his/her team
to start the next project with Scala.

I'd be happy to do the first step and offer our office for the next dojo.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Philip

[Sebastian Nozzi]

Excellent idea Phillip!

Do you have co-workers that would participate? How many approx?

What needs to be taken into account is that there will be many people new to Scala. The activities need to be selected accordingly, but it can be done.

I think it's not only good for raising awareness within the company, but among companies as well. I mean: in the enterprise developer scene as a whole. 

Again, excellent idea. I can also imagine that it would be possible to make one in my workplace (IST Austria). 

Can you set up a date for past mid march? 

Cheers, 

Sebastian

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[Christian Haas]

Hello there!

On Monday, January 27, 2014 10:56:09 PM UTC+1, Philip Graf wrote:

what if we bring the dojos to our workplaces? By this i mean we hold each dojo
at a different company and invite our coworkers to join us.

 

I'm also interested in this proposal. Though I haven't quite found out how to communicate the 'idea' of a language within only two hours; I showed JavaScript to our Dojo once and it ended with mixed results. The next Coding Dojo Vienna after the upcoming one seems to be going heavily Ruby infected, so I'll see how this setup works. We've had a glimpse at the last Scala Dojo, where newbies were paired up with experts; This, for me, ran quite good.

I guess some sort of hands-on is necessary; When someone just sits at the front and shows off the language, I could also watch a similar youtube video.

Idea: In the first hour, just a quick crash course in the very basics is shown (on the projector). Second hour: experts pair up with beginners, doing ping-pong. Exercise selected accordingly, like Sebastian wrote.

regards,

ch

[Yago Alonso]

Hi,  champs!

I like the idea of 'bring your scala to work', but I agree with Christian that the dojo format is maybe not the best approach. I've been thinking lately of trying to organize a half-day/whole-day introductory workshop at work, but I'm not sure if there's enough interest where I work for it.

But, I thought, as a user group we could try to organize such a Scala-101 event maybe 2/3 times a year for people that have had little or no experience with Scala. It would be essential to have enough 'experts' to really make it work. 

If you are up  for something like this, we can discuss on the next meetup/workshop, I think it can really help raise the 'awareness' about Scala.

Phillip, if you're willing to host such an event, i'd be happy to help organize it 

On Monday, January 27, 2014 10:56:09 PM UTC+1, Philip Graf wrote:

[Sebastian Nozzi]

Hi!

I was about to propose something in between. 

Instead of the first hour being a "passive" introduction to Scala (video, presentation, etc.) it could be a "get your hands dirty" problem-solving session/workshop in a similar style (maybe shorter) of what we did in the DevFest: mini-exercises in form of incomplete tests that the devs have to make pass.

The mini-introduction to each test is given as a comment above each test. It's very dynamic, because the devs. learn in small chunks and immediately apply what they just read.

Once they feel like they master some basics of Scala, then the second part can be focused on a Kata (of course, something simple and not expecting to see groundbreaking solutions).

Or we could just make the workshop / mini-exercises.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Seb.

2014-01-28 Yago Alonso <yalo...@gmail.com>

Hi,  champs!

I like the idea of 'bring your scala to work', but I agree with Christian that the dojo format is maybe not the best approach. I've been thinking lately of trying to organize a half-day/whole-day introductory workshop at work, but I'm not sure if there's enough interest where I work for it.

But, I thought, as a user group we could try to organize such a Scala-101 event maybe 2/3 times a year for people that have had little or no experience with Scala. It would be essential to have enough 'experts' to really make it work. 

If you are up  for something like this, we can discuss on the next meetup/workshop, I think it can really help raise the 'awareness' about Scala.

On Monday, January 27, 2014 10:56:09 PM UTC+1, Philip Graf wrote:

--

[Philip Graf]

Hi!

I like the idea of a short "get your hands dirty" session like the one
at DevFest followed by a simple Kata.

I asked my colleagues today if they would be interested in something
like this and 9 (out of 15!) immediately said they would attend such an
event. All but one have never done anything with Scala.

As a date I propose sometime in the first week of April, two weeks after
the Monthly Meetup in March.

Regarding " half-day/whole-day introductory workshop": I had something
short in mind. A first step that wets peoples appetite. People tend to
hesitate attending something that takes some time if they haven't really
made up their mind whether they like it or not. An introductory workshop
would make an excellent second step though.

Cheers,
Philip

[Yago Alonso]

Yeah, the 'whole day' is actually what I wanted to organize at my work, I realize is not for everybody :D But with half-day I meant more like 3-4 hours, which is I believe the minimum reasonable. This way you can add pauses, which are very important for people to discuss the new stuff and so that those having more problems can catch up.

[Sebastian Nozzi]

I don't remember when or if it was suggested to make a whole-day workshop, at least this is not what I originally suggested :-)

What I mean is to have a first part consisting of a hands-on workshop and, optionally, a second part consisting of solving a kata.

Each part can be 1 hour long or so.

Cheers,

Sebastian

2014-01-30 Yago Alonso <yalo...@gmail.com>

--

[Sebastian Nozzi]

2014-01-29 Philip Graf <xkcd.scala-v...@lifebyfood.com>

I asked my colleagues today if they would be interested in something like this and 9 (out of 15!) immediately said they would attend such an event. All but one have never done anything with Scala.

Excellent starting conditions! :-) 

As a date I propose sometime in the first week of April, two weeks after the Monthly Meetup in March.

Excellent. Wrote it down.

Until then we will have clarified which format it should take.

Cheers,

Sebastian

 

[Philip Graf]

Am 30.01.14 13:51, schrieb Sebastian Nozzi:

As a date I propose sometime in the first week of April, two weeks after the Monthly Meetup in March.

Excellent. Wrote it down.

Until then we will have clarified which format it should take.

I have two possible dates for the Scala Dojo: April 2nd and 3rd. Since there will be a lot of Scala newbies we need as many Scala experts (i.e. everyone above newbie level ;-)) as we can get. If you feel you can help then fill in the following doodle. I'll set up a meetup on the day with the most experts later this week.

http://doodle.com/yain7k886uc2h759

Cheers,
Philip

[Christian Haas]

Today I talked with my boss about such a workshop-style introduction to Scala and/or functional programming.

He was interested (and will inquire further up the chain) that we in our company could host such an evening as well; We have plenty of Java developers, so we should be able to find an interested audience. 

So, this could also be happening for us, though the format has not been fixed (or any further parameters) - In our discussion for instance, we figured that around 2x2 hours could be a first option: 2 hours getting to know the topic(s), either via lecture or hands-on, and then 2 further dojo style on voluntary basis.

Another question about the format that we (my boss and I) haven't discussed, but occurred to me looming in the room: Has any payment been considered for the one(s) presenting?

In our case I can imagine a group of 20+ developers interested in at least the first two hours; Which might very well include some from our remote locations (as far as the US, mind you) via conferencing. So, while I acknowledge any selfless effort to promote Scala, events at that scale have some training characteristics at least to me.

Is this something you have considered yet? Or would the scope in a larger company such as where I work be beyond the current idea?

ch

[Manuel Bernhardt]

Hi,

I should be able to come & help out. Filled in the Doodle

Cheers from Schladming,

Manuel

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[Christian Haas]

Hello again!

The first installment was interesting and showed what can be possible.

Since then I've had a few thoughts on how this could be extended and one particular thing stood out for me:

While the exercises that we did were of the right measure (introducing a concept, having examples worked out with the help of an expert), they are not enough - or, to be more precise: not suitable. While these examples help introducing a beginner to the language, they do not 'convince' one of the language.

I imagined my co-workers in such a workshop and although a few might be interested from an academic point of view, I'd also imagine questions such as "How would switching to Scala (from Java) benefit us?".

So, I figured instead of a bottom-up approach, perhaps a top-down approach might be more fruitful:

- Show a small Java example using BDD/acceptance testing with JBehave and the corresponding String-/Annotation-based bindings; And then the same example with a DSL made entirely within Scala, without hassle about the string stuff. (I've heard yesterday that scala-test provides this (?))

If then time and interest permits, go into details how this is achieved: functions without a parameter can be called without parentheses and so forth...

- Show a small example of the Command-Pattern with interface, clumsy execute() implementation and all the nice dressing of brackets and fields everywhere; And then the same example with functions as first-class members.

Then, time and interest permitting, show some more detailed stuff with functions as parameters

- Then an example that is then easily solved with a for-comprehension; Or the compatibility to existing Java libraries, ... -- you get the idea.

My point: I don't think the idea of functional programming can be sold within 1.5 hours. But things working easier out-of-the box can.

And only then, when the people are hooked, i.e. one wants to know how this is done, draw them into functional programming as a side-effect ;)

have fun,

ch

[Sebastian Nozzi]

Hello Christian,

and thanks a lot for your feedback and ideas.

I think you mention a very good question: "How would switching to Scala (from Java) benefit us?". Or shorter: "why should I switch to Scala?".

Myself I was not so sure that this was Philip's intention when "bringing Scala to [his] workplace". Rather give an introduction to the language. But on the other hand, most probably the effect is: ok, yeah, a couple of nice language features, but it's not enough to make me consider switching.

It can also be that "switching" (or wanting to switch) is a long process. In my case it was. I heard of Scala in 2009, maybe 2010. I looked at it, was a little bit enthusiastic, and then ditched it. Years later, in 2012, I was in the situation where I had some freedom to choose a language. I was working with Ruby, dreaming of Smalltalk, but missed static typing and IDE support I knew from Java. I remembered there was this thing called Scala... and here I am.

I still think it's a good idea to contrast Scala and other languages to make the benefits of Scala apparent. IF that's the goal. It's not so difficult in the case of Scala (especially contending agains Java :-).

On the other hand, many people are not impressed at all by how elegant the code looks. They just don't care about code elegance whatsoever (go figure). All that matters is, at the end of the day: "what can I do with this technology that my current one does not allow?". For example, my colleague, a Ruby developer, could not care less about the language(s). Including Ruby. For him it's: Ruby, I don't need an IDE, integrates better with Linux and the command line, and I can patch code on production; Java, it is faster than Ruby, leaks less memory and has better threading model. Of course he does not like Java, but would not have a problem having a colleague that does and takes care of it.

About Scala vs. Java, leaving language benefits aside, could be said... what? It has Akka. It has Play. Oh-kay... Well, both can be used from Java as well, no? It's the functional part? It's the immutability? Yes, they allow computation models that are easier in Scala than in Java. But at the end of the day, for these people, it's about what you can do, not how (it's sad; I know. I *am* an idealist).

As much as I love Scala (because I DO care about code elegance and I think it translates to developer productivity and overall team success), from a tech. lead point of view the motivation to switch from Java to Scala are not so clear.

What are your thoughts?

Cheers,

Sebastian