WHAT IS DOJO CODING
A Coding Dojo is a meeting where a bunch of coders get together to work on a programming challenge. They are there to have fun and to engage in DeliberatePractice in order to improve their skills.
The ParisDojo focuses on coding in front of others, most often something from scratch, in a very short amount of time (1 to 1.5 hours). They use various languages, various tools, various exercise formats. They consider the outcome of an exercise successful when it is completed within allocated time AND audience can repeat the exercise at home by themselves.
Maybe the CodingDojoPrinciples help to understand what the CodingDojo is about.
Premises
Acquiring coding skills should be a continuous process
Characteristics
Non-competitive, collaborative, fun environment
All skill levels are welcome
Safe to try new ideas
Requirements
Meeting room with enough seats (typical attendance varies between 5 and 20 ?)
At least one PC or laptop
A digital projector (‘beamer’)
Process
ParisDojo version:
2 minutes: decide on date for next session
25-30 minutes: quick retrospective of the previous session; what went well, what was interesting, what was frustrating
10 minutes: decide on a topic for this session (we call these first three items the “next, prev, this” protocol)
40 minutes or so: code! PreparedKata or RandoriKata , see below
5-10 minutes: mid-session break to discuss how things are going
40 minutes: code some more
Types of Meeting
PreparedKata
A presenter shows how to solve the challenge from scratch, using TDD and BabySteps .
Each step must make sense to everyone present for.
People should interrupt only if they don’t understand what is going on.
RandoriKata
The challenge is solved by the coding pair (driver and copilot).
Everyone present is invited to help.
Each pair has a small (5 or 7 minutes) timebox to advance, using TDD and BabySteps .
At the end of the timebox, the driver goes back to the audience, the copilot becomes driver and one of the audience step up to be copilot.