What is Coding Dojo and where to practice

    imageCoding Dojo (coding dojo) is a meeting where programmers (and now more and more often testers ) fight together on a task. In addition to the fan, the developers are engaged in what is commonly called Deliberate Practice - a regular practice, the purpose of which is to constantly repeat some exercise in order to improve the skill. That is why the name Dojo appeared , because
    A dojo is a place where we discipline and cultivate ourselves to become better.
    Well, under the cut you can read about the history of the appearance, basic principles and much more.

    The ancestor of this approach is Dave Thomas , who is the author of many books, including the book Pragmatic Programmer, which is one of the key in the education of the developer. Initially, Dave invented what is called coding kata and dedicated a separate site to it . So what is coding kata.
    How to have a good practice exercise? You need time without interruptions and a simple task that you want to solve. You can do it as many times as necessary, without fear of making a mistake. Each time you have to review what you are doing to understand how you can improve. There should be no external pressure, so it is very difficult to practice in a work environment. And most importantly, the practice can be considered a success, if you graduated from it you came out with new knowledge.
    Thus, Code Kata is an attempt to add an element of practice to the development world. Kata is a karate exercise in which you repeat movements many, many times, trying to improve them. For Code Kata, everything is the same. Each is a short exercise (30 to 60 minutes). Some include programming, some require solving problems without code. And those and those do not have one correct answer.

    There are two types of kata: Prepared Kata Randori Kata. Details of each format.
    Prepared kata
    • The facilitator shows how to solve the problem with 0 using TDD and BabySteps
    • Every step should be clear to everyone.
    • Participants begin to practice and break only if something is not clear at a certain step.

    Randori kata
    • The problem is solved by a couple (pilot and navigator)
    • All participants are participating.
    • The couple has a short period of time for work (5 or 7 minutes), during which they work with TDD and BabySteps
    • At the end of the time period, the driver goes into the hall, the navigator becomes a pilot, and someone from the hall becomes a navigator

    Actually the meeting where the kata exercises take place is called Coding Dojo. At the moment, such meetings are held to study approaches (for example, the same TDD), libraries (Selenium 2), solving programming problems, and so on. The meeting can be held online, for this, another well-known comrade Johannes Brodwall launched a special site CyberDojo . By the way, he also has detailed instructions on how to conduct such meetings .

    Since Johann has no plans to Russify his project, I for this purpose raised a copy of the project on Amazon AWS, so the address is still ugly. In the coming week I plan to translate all the texts. There is also a page on the site codecrafting.pro, which will also be certified in the near future so that everything can be seen.

    If you have ideas or desire to hold such a meeting - write in the comments, we will try to hold it by our community .

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