Virtual dojo

[EdK]

Everything I see on the wiki seems to suggest that a coding dojo must
be at a
physical location, why? As more and more professional programmers
telecommute,
and programmers working on a open source projects rarely meet face to
face,
why not have virtual dojos in cyber space?

-EdK

[Hugo Corbucci]

There is a great amount of interaction that is lost in a virtual environment.
We hardly have tools that allow for a good virtual pair programming experience and it gets even worse if you think about a crowd following the pair.

I've recently been to the new talk Fred Brooks has been presenting about telecollaboration. One of his key points about telecollaboration is that you need to have a decent amount of face to face experience in order to have telecollaboration flowing. I think it gets even more critical if you get an heterogeneous groups (such as ones I've been finding in Coding Dojos).

We actually started one initiative in that sense at the University of Sao Paulo but a good system takes a long time to developed and students don't last (meaning they leave once they finished the course). I've heard of conference calls with a shared screen but it can get really hard to ask questions or answer them in an organized form.
Finally, there is the question of a welcoming teaching environment. Remote courses exist but they usually don't think of students interacting together to come up with a solution.

I'm not saying it is impossible. I'm just saying we are not ready for that yet. We need more support from tools.

Cheers,
Hugo

--
Hugo Corbucci
CS Grad from 2003 to 2006
CS Master from 2007 to 2009
Cel: (55) (11) 8636 9029
Phone: (55) (11) 2649 8636
Skype user: hugo.corbucci

[Sammy Larbi]

For me, I've got enough time online doing virtual things with people in a virtual setting. I enjoy getting out and meeting with real developers face to face, and working with them in setting that doesn't exist in the virtual world or many offices you'd get a chance to work in.

Sam