Tuesday 16 April 2013

London Code Dojo 22

Another outing to the London Code Dojo and I've come away with a treasure trove of lessons... now just to remember and apply them!

What Went Down


The dojo was a Checkout scenario, where we were given various fruits as input and we had to return the running total cost.

Whilst the problem was fairly straightforward, the challenge came in handling the shortened 15 minute pomodoro time limit and "requirements changes" in the middle of them!

Before the dojo, I set myself the goal of ensuring I did TDD like I meant it, which I had neglected in my previous dojo. This time I was pairing with Alexandra and I've posted my refactored take on what we did on GitHub (https://github.com/arkangelofkaos/CodeDojo22_Checkout). Once again I have used Java 8 in the code, luckily the collection manipulation leant itself nicely to Lambdas XD

My Impressions & Lessons Learnt

  • Practise is tantamount to improvement, even after the last few dojos I can see that I am improving (long way to go still!)
  • Advice on how to become a master at anything: "All you need to do is not give up!" (Keep practising!)
  • Simple design is incredibly powerful but incredibly difficult to get right.
    • In my experience, I still need to do a little design upfront, due to my lack of experience :P
  • I still need to be more disciplined in refactoring after EVERY test pasts.
    • Don't let technical debt build up, ever.
  • Ensure tests are not fragile, remember tests are code too!
  • Single Responsibility Principle is your friend, brilliant for creating "agile" code.
  • As a goal, I want to do the Gilded Rose Kata which covers "Anti-If patterns"
  • Pairing isn't supposed to make you twice as smart but half as stupid! :D
  • Failing all else: KISS XD

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