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.
Documentation for software developers
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.
Peter Hilton is a software developer, writer, speaker, trainer, and musician. Peter’s professional interests are business process management, web application development, functional design, agile software development, and documentation. He will present at #itakeunconf a session about documentation for software developers.
#1. Please share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow & become the professional you are today
The things that helped me grow the most were starting to do something that I later developed a lot further: travel, presenting, writing, management, and coding. These influences on my professional development were taking overseas assignments and later moving permanently to another country, presenting to colleagues and later at conferences, writing a tech blog and later a published book, leading a team and later taking on a management role. As for coding, the most important thing was to never-never give it up and always have something new to learn.
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017?
My workshop will help participants address the hardest challenge in software documentation: learning how to take the first step from no documentation at all to the minimum viable documentation. The hard part is understanding what you can do, without wasting time on too much documentation.
#3. Recommend for the participants 3 sources you find inspiration from and would help them better understand you
iMy passion is figuring how to explain software and make it maintainable. I was originally inspired to learn more about this after reading Steve McConnel’s book Code Complete, as well as many other books about software development. I discuss my favourite aspect of making code understandable in my Software Engineering Radio interview on naming things.
I’ve always found talking to other people the best way to develop and refine my own ideas. This inevitably lead to conference presentations, for which my greatest influence is Kevlin Henney’s presentations.
Perhaps my greatest inspiration is the real world, which I enjoy exploring. My favourite way to learn about a new city and immerse myself in it is to explore its cafes, which I started doing on business trips and overseas assignments when I had a hotel room instead of a home to stay in. Writing cafe reviews on my own web site, before the likes of TripAdvisor was invented, was also how I started to explore writing. Today, there’s still probably as much writing about cafes as about programming on my own blog.
Want to join Peter and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?
Register now for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!
Mutation testing
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.
Nicolas Fränkel, Software Architect with 15 years of experience in a wide range of contexts, University teacher, experienced trainer and book author will join as speaker I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016. In his talk, he will explain how Code Coverage is computed and what its inherent flaw is. Afterwards, he will describe how Mutation Testing works and how it helps pointing out code that is tested but leave out corner cases.
#1. SHARE TOP 3 THINGS YOU DID THAT HELPED YOU GROW & BECOME THE PROFESSIONAL YOU ARE TODAY
- I chose to become a programmer, because during my architectural studies, there was a course on POV-Ray, a ray-tracing software where scenes are described with a language
- I now avoid not well-understood bash commands after trying to execute a find with exec rm command on a production server and starting deleting the server’s filesystem
- I value knowledge sharing since I started teaching a very long time ago
#2. WHAT CHALLENGES WILL THE PARTICIPANTS FIND SOLUTIONS TO DURING YOUR SESSIONS @ I T.A.K.E UNCONFERENCE 2016?
#3. WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE WITH PARTICIPANTS?
Want to join Nicolas and many more software crafters from around Europe?
Impact Mapping | Patrick Baumgartner
#1. Share with us 5 things from your experience that helped you grow & become the professional you are today
- having a mentor who supports you is great and helps you to challenge your ideas and decisions
- being curious helps you to continuously learn new things
- teaching others helps you to get better on the topic and you learn how to explain things to others
- meeting continuously new people to create new ideas and get inspiration
- having enough rest so that your brain has time for recreation
#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017?
#3. Recommend for the participants 3 sources you find inspiration from and would help them better understand you
- Learn from and with others, by getting involved in local / international practitioners communities. For example, we run in Zurich a monthly Software Craftsmanship Meetup with very diverse topics
- Attend conferences to get inspired by the talks and workshops, as well as the discussions with participants and other speakers.
- Take time for yourself, relax, free your mind and new ideas and thoughts will pop up automatically!
Want to join Patrick, +30 international speakers and ~300 software crafters from around Europe?
Register now for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!