December Session – Coding Dojo

Thanks to everyone for their presentations in the previous session. Since then I’ve had a good chance to have a play with PowerShell and Psake (which are both cool). I still haven’t had a chance to install AutoMapper but it seems more and more likely every day on my current project. There were some interesting side discussion around Event Driven Architectures and Do vs. Done that I’d love to see expanded upon in a later session. Finally, I continue to be blown away by the power and flexibility of WPF. I look forward to being able to build an MVVM project in WPF sometime in the future.

The next session is Wednesday 9th December and it will be another Coding Dojo session. If you haven’t come to one before it basically consists of us, as a group, solving some well defined problem using Test Driven Development. Here are some rules:

1. One pair is "driving" at any given time
2. One of the pair has the keyboard, the Driver, the other is the Navigator
3. When the tests are all passing then the audience may suggest refactorings/tests
4. When the tests are failing the audience may only suggest fixes.
5. The Driver or Navigator may request silence while the tests are failing.
6. Driver/Navigator should swap frequently (like every 5 minutes) with someone in the audience. Be prepared to jump in.
7. Have fun, be nice **

Everyone is welcome, attendance is free.

What: December Coding Dojo
When: Wednesday 9th December, 6pm - ?
Where: 43 Below, 43 Barrack Street, Perth
Cost: Free

** Not necessarily in that order.

July Session - DDDD

Domain Driven Design. The extra D is for Dojo. You can decide which end it belongs.

The July session is on for Thursday night (the 9th), 6pm at 43 below. Adrian has been kind enough to provide a small sample of a drag-drop application that we can either rebuild or refactor into using more Domain Driven approach.

Participation is encouraged but if you just want to sit in the back and heckle feel free.

Beer of the month is still VB (gross) but there is usually a beer and pizza combo deal on Thursday nights for $13 so maybe that balances out.

See you there.

Preparing July Session

At our last meeting we had a long discussion about the general architecture of a Domain-Driven application. While I think most of us have a pretty good understanding of the parts and how they interact it was suggested that we should have another Coding Dojo to build something together and really explore this space.

We’ll build a small part of an application around the AdventureWorks database (hey, it’s there right?). This should consist of a small domain model (2 or 3 classes) and a couple of screens. A lot to get through in one session but we might continue this offline afterwards.

We won’t have internet access as usual so I’d like to stock up on the required tools before we go in. I already have VSTS 2008 Developer Edition, Gallio, MbUnit, NHibernate, Linq to NHibernate, FlunetNHibernate, ASP.NET MVC and Unity on my laptop. What else do we need / would like?

Also, if we stick to the normal meeting date it will by Wednesday, July 8th. As this is my wife’s birthday I’d best move it to one of the other days that week (or buy a very comfy couch). If anyone has a preference let me know otherwise I’m leaning towards Thursday 9th (they have $13 beer and pizza on Thursdays).

TestDriven Dojo a-go-go

Well the bad news is that I forgot to book the 43below function room for the dojo until tonight and the room is taken by the Young Engineers. The good news it that they're going to put us in the restaurant and there is plenty of room (and beer) for both of us.

The event is Wednesday, 8th April starting at 6ish. Beer of the Month is still listed as Fat Yak on the website but as it's April 1st you never know.

Thus far it looks to be shaping up as a good event with:

Jeremy Thake - SharePoint and TypeMock

Rhys Campbell - WinForms

Stephen Price - Silverlight

Tiang Cheng - ASP.NET with WatiN

I don't have a link for Tiang but he sent me this:

Tiang Cheng is a Software Developer at Westnet. He works primarily in .NET 2.0 and 3.5, coding in both Visual Basic and C#. In his free time he codes Ruby on Rails web applications and Device Communcations technology (RFID and Rally Timing). He has a strong interest in Continuous integration, Testing techniques, and Software Quality and Measurement.  

Don't forget to bring your Coding Ninja outfit (I refuse to call it a Gi) and be prepared to jump in at a moments notice. Also, just two last things. 1) If you are coming please register at http://perthaltnet0904.eventbrite.com/ 2) Tell your friends (or if you think TDD is stupid tell your enemies). That is all. See you there.

TestDriven Dojo

Now that I’m back from Las Vegas it is time to organize next months Perth ALT.NET meeting. Last time we had some great discussion about running a Coding Dojo to follow on from the most recent Perth .NET CoP meeting.

A Coding Dojo is a meeting where a bunch of coders get together to work on a programming challenge. It is a great way to learn from your peers and to improve your skills. This dojo will focus on Test Driven Design.

The basic idea is this: You will show up and at some time during the night you will have contributed some tests and production code to a project in some .NET technology. I need to confirm some of the people who said they’d be willing to help facilitate this but thus far it looks like we have WinForms and SharePoint covered.

Rhys Campbell covered WinForms in his most recent Perth .NET CoP presentation and if you want a preview of what to expect from the SharePoint session you might like to check out the new Evening Developer-Only SharePoint sessions. The first one is tonight and it’s Jeremy Thake on SharePoint Developer Testing!

If you are interesting in facilitating a Dojo along the lines of TDD (I’m thinking WPF, Silverlight, ASP.NET are all not covered yet) then please let me know ASAP. All you need to do is provide a basic application and guide some people through adding some functionality Test-First.

The session will be at 5:30pm on Wednesday 8th April. To help us with venue we ask that you register your intent to come at this eventbrite page http://perthaltnet0904.eventbrite.com/

Any comments or feedback please drop me an email.