Software Craftsmanship 2010

Apparently there will be one. Excellent! For all my growing distaste for the This Movement and That Manifesto and what all that's springing up around the parts of the industry that I see most closely, a place that happens to be of the same name as one where people can come together and share an enjoyment of good code and coding is a fine thing.

Jason says that he's "banning talks, presentations or any other kind of session that doesn't involve real live coding" I appreciate the gesture, but I'm not sure that's quite right. I found that Ade's session on mapping personal practices particularly valuable—although it could have benefited from another hour or so. None–the–less a programmers' conference with programming as its core topic illustrated through programming is a too–rare thing and Jason is to be commended for making one happen.

Both of the sessions that I ran there involved real coding by attnedees and even though I wasn't coding myself I learned plenty from the reactions of those who were, such as Gojko's on the TDD session. I've not come across a better forum elsewhere for that kind of discussion on that sort of scale than the SC conference, so having another one seems like a very good thing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've experiences a few things in the craft world:

1) Single item workshops, often a few days long, often with craftspeople working on their own work but with pauses to discuss, show partial work and be led by the organiser. There are sometimes short lectures interspersed that are considered relevant to the work at hand.

2) Theory only lecture weekends where people present 30min, 1hr or 2hr talks and aspects of craft, both practical and theory.

3) Mixed weekends where there's a "have a go" element and lectures - but mostly these seem to be for people trying a new thing rather than continuing an ongoing work.

Perhaps SW Craft needs to consider whether it needs to break itself out into weekends, 3-5 day long in-depth sessions and mixed lecture/have-a-go style items.