2013

Apr 30, 2020 by Alexandru Bolboaca in

First edition, featuring Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Sandro Mancuso, Radu Marinescu as our academic speaker, and many community organizers from around Europe

Software craftswomen: Franziska Sauerwein

Mar 08, 2016

In celebration of Women’s Day, this March we salute yesterday & today women’s contribution to the development of the technology and IT fields. Follow #famousITwomen to find interesting stories. They might motivate and encourage you to do something out of the ordinary in your career.

We’ve sat down with Franziska Sauwerwein, software craftswoman. Learn more about her professional journey and lessons learned in the IT field. She will speak at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016.

#1. What’s your professional story?

Please share with us about your journey in the IT field.

Hey, my name is Franziska Sauerwein and I’m a Software Craftswoman. Puzzles have always amazed me and that’s how I got interested in Computer Science. After completing my degree I worked as a software developer and consultant for three years in Germany. I then moved to London to join Codurance in the summer of 2015.

My passions include Test Driven Development, Refactoring, XP techniques and high quality software development. I’m always trying to improve my skills and share knowledge. As an active member of the European Software Craftsmanship community I love to participate in unconferences and organise code retreats, hackathons, coding dojos as well as tech talks. I aim to use my skills and creativity to develop software that is reliable, easy to adapt and doing what it is supposed to do.

#2. What would be a lesson you’ve learned so far as practitioners in this field?

I learned that software development is much more about people than about sitting alone at a desk in a room and coding in isolation, which is great! I do enjoy coding at a high quality level but people have always fascinated me.

As developers, we have a profound influence on our society and people’s everyday lives. How we write software and what we write has an impact and with great power comes great responsibility. And how people act when developing software has a great influence on how that software turns out. For example, a team that does not have a good team culture or a lacking relationship with the business will most probably have code quality problems that stem from misunderstandings and lack of communication. And sometimes products are developed just from a developer’s perspective without the user’s needs in mind when the teams are too homogenous. This is something that should definitely be changed.

#3. Whom do you admire as a women IT practitioner? Why?

Please share with our audience about great women you think they make a difference in this domain.

There are so many women in IT that I admire. If I had to choose one, I’d point out Rachel Davies, an expert practitioner and coach of eXtreme Programming. If you search online for “Rachel Davies xp” (without quotes) you’ll find a lot of content, including videos of her inspiring talks. Talking to her has given me lots of insights and she keeps on inspiring me.

What women in IT inspire you? Let us know in a comment!

Curious to meet Franziska? Join her @ I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!

Personas

Aug 26, 2014

Trouble deciding which sessions to attend? The program is created to target the main roles in technical companies.
When the program is done you’ll see the recommended sessions for each persona.

	Albert the Architect Designs scalable systems and communicates their architecture Maintains architectural integrity to allow easy addition of new features Finds new ideas on how to balance performance, security, usability, reliability, etc. Teaches the others architecture, design patterns, architecture patterns
	Carol the CTO Aligns business needs with technical strategy Is responsible for quality, secure software Evaluates appropriate technology platforms Identifies technology trends
	Chris the Craftsman Programmer Wants to write quality code faster Experiments and learns new techniques Enjoys hanging around his peers Is curious about how others work
	Cristina the Technical Co-Founder Aims to build products/services that customers love Defines technical architecture, strategy, design policies Works side by side with programmers Balances time to market with technical risks
	Diana the DevOps Aims to simplify deployment, configuration and monitoring Works with programmers to ensure smooth releases Wants to simplify the resolution of production issues
	Megan the Manager Manages projects Leads by example Grows happy teams Implements metrics to measure and improve performance
	Tamara the Team Leader Challenges the status quo with new ideas Monitors the code quality Has a big toolbox for solving technical problems Researches tools to improve productivity
	Tudor the Technical Consultant Wonders what are the emerging techniques Informs people about suitable practices Works closely with the development team Advises on the technical strategy

Programming contest @I T.A.K.E Unconference

May 05, 2017

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:

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.