[Baypiggies] April agenda?

[Aahz]

READ THIS FIRST: two weeks is a relatively short setup time for what I'm
proposing.  If someone is prepared to do a presentation or has a better
idea for the meeting, please post NOW.


On Thu, Mar 30, 2006, Tony C wrote:
>
>>>a live sprint
>
> Would someone describe what a sprint is ?

Neal gave a good technical response; my thought for the April meeting
would be to do something a good deal more casual.  Basically people would
pair up [1] for extreme programming [2] on a small piece of a live
project.  Either an experienced programmer would help a newbie with zir
work or the newbie would work on something with the experienced
programmer.  I'd expect that each group of two people would be working on
something different from the other groups; the primary goal here would be
to practice pair programming and test-driven development [3], not to
actually get lots of work done.

(As Neal pointed out, real sprints work best when there's a substantial
tutorial for newbies; sprints usually last three or four full days.  It's
not at all clear to me whether what I'm proposing would work, but if it
does, it would be a good model for other groups training newbies.  Worth
a shot, I think.)

[1] http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html
[2] http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
[3] http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/testfirst.html
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Look, it's your affair if you want to play with five people, but don't
go calling it doubles."  --John Cleese anticipates Usenet