Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.
In today’s news is Phillipp Krenn, developer advocate @Elastic, who spreads the love and knowledge of full-text search, analytics, and real-time data. During his sessions, the attendees will cover the basics of Ansible by setting up a local environment in Vagrant and explore how Elasticsearch stores and interacts with JSON documents.
#1. SHARE TOP 5 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY
- Never stop learning: Keep up to date & don’t ignore either tried and tested solutions of the past
- Participate at local events to learn and get to know other people in your field — meetup.com is a great starting point
- Build stuff: Find interesting problems to apply and extend your skills
- Attend at least 1 conference per year to broaden your horizon
- Your dream job or project is just one interview away; there are way more opportunities than you would think at first, just give it a try
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your sessions @ I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?
In my Ansible & AWS workshop we will learn how to automate your infrastructure, so you have a reproducible and documented system.
In the Elasticsearch talk we will try to overcome the object-relational impedence mismatch and make developmemt more productive and fun.
#3. What else would you like to share with participants?
The best place to learn more about my experience or ask any question is definitely Twitter – @xeraa
Want to join Phillipp and many more software crafters from around Europe?
Remote pair programming
Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 11-12 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.
Raimo Radczewski is a freelancing software craftsman living in Berlin, Germany. He’s organizing Berlin’s Software Craftsmanship Community where he supports craftspeople with professionalizing and sharpening their skills, but also reflect on their current practices and how they can work better as teams. At #itakeunconf he will be sharing about Remote Pair-programming.
#1. Please share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow and become the professional you are today
I think the most important thing that shaped my career has been the Software Craftsmanship movement. I first went to an OpenSpace in 2012, then Coderetreats, then SoCraTes, then organizing OpenSpaces and such. The community has really supported me and helped me grow in every professional aspect I could think of.
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017?
The most challenging part of working remote is keeping an inter-human connection to the person on the other side to make up for the tools that so rarely work. It also helps to use the least-broken tools and find a structure that works for the individuals that want to pair up.
#3. Recommend for the participants 3 sources you find inspiration from and would help them better understand you
I draw most of my inspiration from visiting and organizing events in the communities. Additionally, the Software Craftsmanship Slack Team is a great place to start discussing with craftspeople all over the world.
Want to join Raimo and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?
Register now for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!
Programming contest @I T.A.K.E Unconference
As for every I TAKE Unconference edition, we want to give a chance to the software crafters from the audience to showcase their skills and learn more in the process. And because we appreciate passion, we offer a prize to those who convince a jury of well-known international developers that they are the most skilled in the room.
This contest is not meant to be easy. It will require you to practice beforehand, so please read the instructions carefully.
It will also require you to register before the event.
Mechanics
- IMPORTANT: Register to the contest latest one day before I TAKE Unconference by sending an email to steliana.moraru@mozaicworks.com
- On the first day of the event, after lunch, you have max 15′ to do a performing kata in front of the jury.
- The winner will be announced at the end of the second day
Constraints
To simplify the jury’s decision, the performing kata has to conform to the following constraints:
- Only the following programming languages are accepted: Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Visual Basic .NET, PHP, Javascript, Swift or Ruby
- Only solo contestants are accepted. Sorry, no pair programming this time
- The kata has to showcase refactoring skills.
- The kata has to last max. 15′
How we will judge
The jury will judge your refactoring skills.
The ideal kata looks like this – you will get maximum point if you:
- clearly state the smells you see in the code
- pick one of the smells
- clearly state your plan to fix the smell
- fix it in small, safe steps
- run tests after each step to prove you didn’t break anything
- commit after each step with a clear message explaining why you made the change
- fix as many smells as possible within the time constraint
You will loose points if you:
- make big or unsafe changes to the code
- break the behaviour after changing the code
- don’t improve the code a lot
- don’t improve the design by the end of the kata (hint: we judge design using SOLID principles and the four elements of simple design)
Recommendations
To help you, we’ve thought out what we would do if we participated to such a contest. Here’s what we recommend.
1) Use one of the following codebases for the kata:
- https://github.com/emilybache/GildedRose-Refactoring-Kata
- https://github.com/emilybache/Tennis-Refactoring-Kata
- https://github.com/emilybache/Yatzy-Refactoring-Kata
- https://github.com/emilybache/Parrot-Refactoring-Kata
2) Practice beforehand on the structure we presented for the ideal kata. Ideally find someone to practice with.
3) Watch other people refactoring. YouTube has many videos on the topic, including using the recommended code bases.
Glossary
A programming kata is a repeatable exercise used to practice specific skills.
Performing kata means doing a kata in front of an audience.
Refactoring means changing the internal structure of the code without changing its behaviour.
Show your coding skills while competing with peers like you
How the Programming Contest works?
- Register for THE contest on May 28
- Solve the challenges
- Submit the solutions until May 29, 2 pm
Who will review your code?
Compete with passionate coders at I T.A.K.E. Unconference
