What is Coding Dojo and where to practice

Coding Dojo (coding dojo) is a meeting in which programmers (and now, more often, testers ) are tackling some task together. In addition to the fan, the developers are engaged in what is called Deliberate Practice - a regular practice, the purpose of which is to constantly repeat some kind of exercise in order to improve the skill. That is why the name Dojo appeared, because

Dojo is a place where we discipline and improve ourselves to become better.

Well, under the cut you can read about the history of the appearance, the basic principles and much more.

The ancestor of this approach is Dave Thomas , who is the author of many books, including the book Pragmatic Programmer, which is one of the key in the education of the developer. Initially, Dave came up with what is called coding kata and dedicated a separate site to it . So what is coding kata.

How to conduct a good practical exercise? You need time without interruptions and a simple task that you want to solve. You can do it as many times as necessary, without fear of making a mistake. Every time you have to do a review of what you are doing in order to understand how you can improve. There should be no external pressure, so it is very difficult to practice in a work environment. And most importantly, the practice can be considered successful if you finished it with new knowledge.
Thus, Code Kata is an attempt to add an element of practice to the world of development. Kata is an exercise in karate, in which you repeat the movements many, many times, trying to improve them. For Code Kata, all the same. Each is a short exercise (from 30 to 60 minutes). Some include programming, some require solving problems without code. And those and those do not have one correct answer.

Kata is of two types: Prepared Kata Randori Kata. Details on each format.
Prepared Kata

• The facilitator shows how to solve the problem with 0, using TDD and BabySteps
• Every step should be clear to everyone.
• Participants start practicing and are interrupted only if something is not clear in a certain step.

Randori kata

• The problem is solved by a couple (pilot and navigator)
• All participants are involved.
• The couple has a short amount of time to work (5 or 7 minutes), during which they work using TDD and BabySteps
• At the end of the time period, the driver goes to the gym, the navigator becomes a pilot, and someone from the audience becomes the navigator.

The actual meeting where the kata exercises take place is called Coding Dojo. To date, such meetings are held to study approaches (for example, the same TDD), libraries (Selenium 2), solve programming problems, and so on. The meeting can be held in the online format, for this another well-known comrade Johannes Brodwall has launched a special site CyberDojo . By the way, he also has detailed instructions on how to conduct such meetings .

Since Johann does not plan to do the Russification of his project so far, for this purpose I raised a copy of the project on Amazon AWS, so the address is not nice yet. In the next week I plan to translate all the texts. There is also a page on the site codecrafting.pro , which will also be confirmed soon so that everything can be seen.

If you have any ideas or desire to hold such a meeting - write in the comments, we will try to hold it by the forces of our community .