Self Code Retreat

Motivation

I’ve been lucky to participate in many Coderetreats and I want to do a small coding practice that keeps the same feeling.

What is a Code retreat?

The Coderetreat site says:

Coderetreat is a day-long, intensive practice event, focusing on the fundamentals of software development and design.

A Code retreat day is structured in two main parts:

Setting context

0. A previously chosen exercise is explained to the audience, most of the times the chosen exercise is Conway’s Game of Life.
1. There will be between 4 and 6 sessions, each session will be 45min long.
2. Each session has an activity.
3. Each Activity teaches something specific.
4. People has to pair program, so everyone finds a partner.

Iterating sessions

0. Session starts, pick your favorite language and start coding, follow the Activity constraints if any.
1. 45 min later the session ends, you MUST DELETE YOUR CODE.
2. Retrospective time.
3. Rest 10-15 min.
4. Switch pair, pick another activity and start another session.

What is the best about a Code retreat?

• Repetition
• Retrospection

How to mimic the most important things?

0. Define the session duration (I like 25-30 min).
1. Pick a restriction.
2. Pick an exercise.
3. At the end of the session commit your code and tag it.
4. Rest, I like to take 5-10 min.
5. Start a new session from scratch

Examples to try

• https://github.com/chischaschos/gilded_rose_kata
• https://github.com/chischaschos/el_gato
• https://github.com/chischaschos/bare_gato
• https://github.com/chischaschos/tic-tac-toe-pairing-with-pollo
• https://github.com/chischaschos/ruby-game_of_life
• https://github.com/chischaschos/ruby-bowling_game
• https://github.com/chischaschos/toy-robot-simulator-kata
• https://github.com/chischaschos/go-bankocr-kata
• https://github.com/chischaschos/bank_ocr-ruby-kata

TODO:

• Clean up examples README.md files, or maybe group all katas in a single repo.
• Provide examples of restrictions I’ve liked.
• Try Jeff Bay’s Object Calisthenics