Slides for a coderetreat I facilitated in Buchaers in the AgileWorks community. The problem is poker and the sessions are quite different than the usual ones.

1. Bucharest, 7 September 2013
Code retreat
www.mozaicworks.com

2. www.mozaicworks.com
Me
Adi Bolboaca
Organizational & Technical
Trainer & Coach

3. Why?
Learn through pairing
Extend your comfort zone
Practice
Experiment
Learn new practices
www.mozaicworks.com

4. How?
1 day of coding
Choose a simple problem
6 pairing partners
On average 135 minutes of coding
6 different constraints
A lot of fun!
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5. How it started
CodeMash conference 2009
Gary Bernhardt
Patrick Welsh
Nayan Hajratwala
Corey Haines
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6. How it started
Repeatable
Day-long
Practice the fundamentals of programming
Intense day of coding
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7. Day structure
15' introduction
3 sessions of 45' coding + 15' retro&break
1h lunch
3 sessions of 45' coding + 15' retro&break
15' closing circle
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8. Principles
Language agnostic
Do not try to finish the problem
Delete the code after each session
Focus on practicing
Experiment each session
Have fun!
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9. Prerequisites
Computer
Coding environment
Testing framework
Source control (git, svn, etc)
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10. The four elements of simple design
1) Passes its tests
2) Minimizes duplication
3) Maximizes clarity
4) Has fewer elements
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11. Poker
A deck of 52 cards
Minimum 2 players
A dealer handles the cards
Cards are dealt clockwise around the poker table
Each player bets, adding it clockwise to the pot
Players can change cards, (see game variant)
One player with the best cards wins all the pot
If no player wins, we have a draw
For draw the winning players split the pot
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12. First session
Find a pair
Choose a programming language
Setup the environment
Choose an entry point for the problem
Start in 5 min
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13. Conway's game of life
A deck of 52 cards
Minimum 2 players
A dealer handles the cards
Cards are dealt clockwise around the poker table
Each player bets, adding it clockwise to the pot
Players can change cards, (see game variant)
One player with the best cards wins all the pot
If no player wins, we have a draw
For draw the winning players split the pot
www.mozaicworks.com

14. Full Test Coverage
100% test coverage during the whole session
When test is below 100% the facilitator stops you
from adding functionalities until the coverage is
back at 100%
All your tests must contain the assert
You need to install a code coverage tool
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15. Code retreat
1 hour Lunch
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16. Taking Baby Steps
1) Initialize source control repository
2) Start a timer for 2 minutes
3) Write exactly one test
a) Timer rings, the test is red, then revert and go to 2)
b) The test is green before the timer rings, then commit
4) Restart timer
5) Refactor
a) Timer rings, the refactoring is not complete then revert and
restart
b) The refactoring is complete before the timer rings, commit
and go to 2)
Obs.
The timers must run continuously, don't stop to talk! www.mozaicworks.com

17. Single Responsibility Principle
A method has more functionalities add all in
the method’s name with use or/and to separate
them
The method name has and/or then split the
method
No conditionals: if, switch, etc
No try/catch
Exactly one assert per test
Test one behaviour per test
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18. No primitives
You have to encapsulate the:
Arrays
Other data structures
Integer
String
Boolean
Other primitives
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19. Focus on refactoring
Use naming that reveals intent
Rename concepts to improve naming (use
domain language)
Extract duplicate identical chunks of code
Extract methods having the same noun into their
class
Split methods containing Or, And in their names
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20. Closing circle
1) How did you feel?
2) What did you learn today?
3) What will you do differently tomorrow?
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21. Code retreat
Why?
Learn through pairing
Extend your comfort zone
Practice
Experiment
Learn new practices
www.mozaicworks.com

22. Contact me
● Remote pair-programming
● Unit testing workshop
● Test driven development workshop
● Clean code workshop
● Refactoring workshop
● Legacy code retreat
● Working FAST and Safe with existing
code
● Code retreat
www.mozaicworks.com

23. Code retreat
Extend your mentoring & training capacity
Accelerate learning through communities
of practice
Grow your functional leaders and top
talents
http://www.mozaicworks.com
adrian.bolboaca@mozaicworks.com
@adibolb