Global Day of Coderetreat 2014

This was the first time that we organized a Global Day of Coderetreat. We were a little bit worried at the beginning as we weren't sure about the organization of the event, but motivation was stronger and, at the end, we were very glad of being able to bring it to Girona.

What we really love about these kind of Dojo Coding events is the total collaboration among all participants, an essential part if you really want to get the best possible results. It is the same kind of work that XP teams do (extreme programming).

The base that we used to practise during GDCR was the kata, or exercise, of the classic John Conway's Game of Life.

Game of Life consist of a cellular automaton defined by a cell matrix that can be in one of two possible scenarios or states: dead or alive. At the beginning of the game the state of each cell is decided and the automaton calculates the state of the matrix generation after generation.

All exercises, or katas, that we did, some of them already known and others new, allowed us to refine programming techniques not only on a code level but also in terms of teamwork.

Some of the exercises that we did were:

• Ping pong TDD, good for less experienced groups.
• Text editor only, perfect to improve the effectiveness in the use of other tools.
• No conditional statements, in order to learn how to use higher levels of abstraction to write better code.
• Only four lines per method, in order to make programmers practice a particular aspect of well-written code.

Happy on how the event went, we hope to host the event next year in Girona again.

We're waiting for you!