Code Dojo Review

[dpx (Ben)]

First of all I would like to thank Sensei Mike and Sensei Robert for
taking the time to organize and execute the Code Dojo.

As Dave suggested sometimes testing takes more time than expected. I
wouldn't have minded that exercise being split into 2 meetings. Maybe
also 2 computers since several people had trouble with the keyboard/
eclipse combo. Not sure how that would work exactly but just an idea.

I would also like to see the project code in some kind of source
control (my preference being subversion) so that we can both view the
progress over time (revisions), pick up where we left off, and allow
those who want to study the code more to pull it down outside the
meetings. As we get away from the simplest of projects (how many
variations of FizzBuzz are there?), multi-session projects might
become a norm.

Also, regarding source control, it would help if we switch between the
ping-pong format ad the format where people split off into teams and
compare end results if everyone was checking into one source control
repository and at the end we used one computer to update the
repository and display the results from there.

If no one else has capacity I can set up a subversion repository one
my servers.

Furthermore, I would have liked to have seen everyone at the meeting
have a chance at the keyboard, so again I'm voting for a little more
complex project. It might be nice to see the lesser experienced
testers come and write the original tests and implementation and then
allow the more seasoned testers come up and refactor to show best
practices and design patterns. To support that, I was not very
comfortable refactoring the Java code (I considered my lack of
immediate ideas for refactoring a bit of a failure), but I probably
should have given my time at the keyboard writing tests and
implementations to someone with less TDD experience.

All in all a great experience and a good time. Does anyone know if
Village Cafe would be opposed to BYOB... I really could have used a
Balmer Peak while struggling with that Mac ;)