Reformat?

[dertseha]

Currently we again see a decline in regular participation and "new flesh" is getting rare again. The last dojo had three participants and the dojos before weren't that much bigger. We did say that we might want to think about increasing our foothold.

I've been talking with a few people at SoCraTes Germany and received some input, together with a few ideas. Listing them without much explanation or emphasis:

• Start a meetup group
• allow different formats, not just dojos, but also things like talks, show-and-tell or discussions, based on a topic
• get "big names" people with talks
• involve the people (more)

Even shortly before SoCraTes, I did think about opening up to other formats, and starting off by asking (on Mailinglist and Twitter) if there's something people would like. On the other hand, it may be difficult to find a niche, while competing against the highly fractured developer scene in Vienna, with all the other meetups happening each week. I do suspect, if concentrating on language-agnostic topics, you could score well without "aggressively" taking away people.

Furthermore, how much "Coding Dojo" would this then be to be called "#CodingDojoVie" anymore? And finally, I don't see myself as a full organizer, running after new topics/speakers/advertising/... Doodle and some mailing list mail is the highest of my feelings ;)

Any thoughts?

[codecop]

Things like Meetup group, speakers and such are a lot of work. I have been there with the Java group for several years. And the core group of organizers was up to 10 people sharing work.

Maybe Summer break is a good idea after all. Vacation season is always tricky I guess. Sorry for you that you pulled July and August, must be frustrating.,,

Still go ahead with asking on the mailing list for wishes of people. I guess a) no answers, or b) fantastic answers of people that never showed up ;-)

I like the Coding Dojo as dojo. Yes we can make Randori if we are less than ten attendees, although I find that limiting. The Python Dojo group ALWAYS does Randori and it is not always pleasant.

I am very happy with the current mode and distribution and amount of work. I consider the CodingDojoVie "group" a success, a small and fine community. And yes, I am not there always...

[dertseha]

Hm, I like that view, thank you. A group just for coding dojos - doesn't have to be the representative craftsmanship community of Vienna. That makes things easier and there's no need to dare higher.

I'm OK with the Summer months - I wanted them (you know, air-con and so ;) ).

[ernst-fastl]

I am with @codecop I think it ist good to stick with the monthly Dojos, even if there are not many people in some months.

I am planning to start at a new employer in November. Maybe I can bring in another company as host then.

[dertseha]

Thank you for your responses. In essence, no need to dare higher. Let someone else try to boost the craftsmanship community in Vienna ;)

[codecop]

Maybe this has been closed too fast. @dertseha you did not say what your goals were. I guess you had some ideas or visions what it could become and why.

• What would be a sustainable number of participants for you?
• Also the CodingDojoVie is a part of Socrates Austria/Vienna, which does not exist (yet).

[dertseha]

(This ended up being a rubber-ducking post, bear with me)

Regarding the participants, it would be great to have a stable attendance of around 14 people, with more always welcome. Regularly, new people should come in, and people spread the format into their companies. With 6 or less, especially if it is only regulars, there is not much input and more experienced can't learn to show to others. For the facilitator it's also not much fun to come up with a new exercise and then have it only for 4 people.

I don't know how to get to such a thriving community. Viewed from the other side (not dojo, but general development communities), we have a fractured technology-based field in Vienna. There might be people interested in non-technology specific practices, yet there is no such community taking responsibility.

I agree that CodingDojoVie is part of the non-existing craftsmanship community of Vienna. I am wondering whether such a community would start when there are already only few dojo participants.

Then again, perhaps all that is missing is a call for regular meetings somewhere (incidentally the companies we have access to, or central coworking spaces) where people hold (lighting) talks about some topics. These topics should not fit into the existing technology-specific groups. Let's call this fictional group #CleanCodersVie .

This group has an adapter to SWK to appear as the craftsmanship community - I'd like the name not to be bound to a (potentially) en-vogue, politically loaded term. While "Clean Code" is still edgy to some, it enjoys wider establishment. (Also, the hashtag is shorter.)

Then and again, topics presented in #CleanCodersVie could be exercised in #CodingDojoVie .

tl;dr:

• I'd like to have more (new) participants in #CodingDojoVie
• I was wondering whether #CodingDojoVie could (should) diversify in terms of provided content (most likely not)
• I am curious whether it is possible to have a non-technical community take a hold here in Vienna, fuelled by SWK mentality.

[ernst-fastl]

A couple of thoughts from my side on this:

1. I think we could try to learn through experimentation: try a couple of different formats and see which attracts the most people
2. I think autum is a good time to start those experiments since holiday season is over
3. I could imagine a format during worktime like an "expert breakfest" from 9:00-11:00 could lower the entry bar, I would expect that some companies would allow their employees to do that as working hours "education"

[dertseha]

I received some feedback from a co-worker, who is sad to not be able to join next week's dojo because of a holiday trip: That the dojo has a "theme" was very interesting.

[codecop]

I guess every dojo we did had a theme, at least most of them, because of the constraints. Maybe the theme was not made explicit or was not exciting like "clean code". I understand that some topics are more exciting - usually tool topics, e.g. async, new features in Java 8/9, FP - which I consider less important.

• So maybe we should make that theme explicit and public when announcing the dojo?
• Or maybe we could focus on tooling/hip stff every second dojo?

Unfortunately creating custom exercises with theme is time consuming. Looking for suitable code and having an idea of potential solutions in the most popular languages took me hours for this one. (Currently counting 8 hours and not finished, no slides, no handout...) I am not sure this is possible in general.

[ernst-fastl]

Having a explicit theme for every second Dojo sounds like a nice idea to me. We could just try that for a while and see, if indeed more people join those sessions.

@codecop: If new language features attract more people maybe we could do a Dojo like the collection pipelining refactoring you did in spring. That pattern works in some othe languages as well, so that non-Java guys hopefully don't feel excluded

[mlem]

Do you want to do a brain storming about themes or a theme and create some template?

Or do we let it flow and refactor it afterwards, when we have done it 2-3 times, and abstract it then?

[xbojch]

Allow me to contribute as a participant so far. I agree that making the "theme" public before the dojo makes the decision easier for participants.

Perhaps this is too much extra work, but maybe including a focused learning component to cover themes like OO design, design patterns, refactoring legacy code and similar would attract "fresh" people that would benefit by learning from the more experienced.

Not to replace the current format completely, this could be an every 2-3 months attempt to spread the word and get people to join.

[codecop]

@xbojch good to see you. I agree. Also with the larger number of facilitators we could go back to running twice a month and every second event could be themed, with presentations and so forth. Also, when looking on some teaching aspects, 2 hours is very short to explain sth and practice it.

[dertseha]

Over one year later, we seem to have collected some experience with "topics at invitation time". Demand is still below threshold for running two equal dojos a month.

I'd have proposed for closing this issue, then I remembered one idea that someone had:

Would there be a demand for a "Master Class" dojo? e.g., one dojo that is like we've been running for years now, and a second, going more into discussions and show-and-tell style. For instance, the dojo that @paulroho held about the exercise he and @codecop did, would perhaps also lend itself as a show-and-tell with subsequent discussion. Similar to what actually emerged, yet with explicit focus.

Pros from the top of my head:

• Perhaps people have it easier to decide where to go/what to do
• Complete dojo newbies might not be scared away by high-level esotheric discussions

Cons:

• Potential of losing focus and having everyone jump on the "new stuff" about this master class, and completely forget the original "basic" dojo idea.
• Perhaps "dev master class" is even a wrong (misleading) name

Just some brainstorming here. What do you think?

[dertseha]

@paulroho would your #27 fit into this "dev master class" idea?

[paulroho]

Definitely! Love the Master Class idea, but not so much the name, as it does not sound overly inclusive.

[mlem]

I'd call it nitpicking class.

I agree, that people have different flavors about the difficulty or depth of dojos. I had expert guys sighting when doing randori katas with junior developers.

But, I see dojos as a team exercise to practice katas. In asian martial arts you train the same thing over and over, until you have it in your blood. And then you still do it, to keep it in your blood.

Once you have it in your blood, you can go out "fighting" and having fun, because you have gained automatic motions programmed into your brain. Instead of strugling to remember the correct motion order, you start thinking about the meta of the "fighting". You can focus on your enemy and the fight itself.

For me, dojos should do the same and help and encorage people to practice katas. Doing high level talks, discussions and high level work doesn't help me achieving this goals.

What are we trying to achieve?

[codecop]

yes @mlem great question - what do we want to achieve? What do we want?

• @paulroho did the session because we wanted to know/test how other people would use the API - call it research.
• I did some dojos to test run certain katas and exercises.
• I also did some dojos to just run a dojo for the community, minimizing effort on my side.

[dertseha]

To be clear, I'm thinking - more as in "theorizing", rather than "I'd like to do" - about diversification of our brand "CodingDojoVie" as the "official" representation of the Softwerkskammer in Vienna.

Meaning, in the area of getting better, there's the classic dojo, as Martin describes, and separate to that perhaps this nitpicking master class. Side-note: We've had a few misunderstandings at SoCraTes Linz this year, as the people there also run a regular "Coding Dojo". They understand this name to be a programming training class for children - which is also a great effort!

Again, this is just a irregular introspective thought that I have, asking out loud to get a feeling of the overall mood. I perfer things to be spoken out than just brooding.

[codecop]

@dertseha till now CodingDojoVie is just the Coding Dojo (not the Coders Dojo which is the children training organisation that you mentioned). Of course a coding dojo shares the mindset of software craftsmanship. Now I understand your (periodic) reminder as a series of questions

1. What is the purpose of CodingDojoVie? (we have different answers for that already).
   • basic practice
   • test run exercises
   • dive into advanced topics?
   • be a craftsmanship community?
2. How much Craftsmanship can and want we to convey using CodingDojoVie? In comparison, the Python Coding Dojo is less based on Craftsmanship. There is pairing and focus in TDD and clean code, but implicit under a "proper coding" umbrella, not to grow and learn - as explicit as in CodingDojoVie.
3. should there be a SWK Vienna meetup where theory is discussed, maybe talks. etc.? In Berlin the SWK Berlin is running meetups and sometimes coding dojos, so the other way round. Recently Sebastian gave up his professional Dev group, nobody seemed to want it to continue.
4. What other things are we (as group of organizers) able to do?
   • Coderetreats (already),
   • maybe free workshops,
   • maybe meetup with sessions (previous item)
   • maybe learning circles, book clubs, apprentice/coaching offerings (we partially do)
5. up to SoCraTes Vienna everything seems possible.

Thank you for opening the question again. I would like to meet more people with our mindset, which means that we need more than the Coding Dojo alone. On the other hand, all these things need preparation and work. I am only helping on the side. I will support everything that comes up.

[paulroho]

Love the thoughts and discussion. I see the CodingDojoVie first and foremost as a craftsmanship community. Having the monthly meetups is the baseline of activities, supporting the GDCR in one way or another being the light-house of it. I deliberately avoided the term coding dojo for our monthly gatherings as I am not sure, if it always has to be a classical dojo. I think as a minimum we should stick to the monthly rhythm, no matter with what type of activity we fill those spots as long as they adhere to our basic principles we reiterate at the beginning of each dojo.

[ernst-fastl]

I also like the idea of trying out new formats. At the same time I also think we should continue to support the community by a number of Dojo's and Retreats over the year. I am happy to host and facilitate 4 events per year, regardless whether it is a Dojo, a meetup with pesentations and moderated discussions to work on a specific topic, or something else.

It would however be hard for me to do twice the number of events if we are planning to do two different types of events each month.

[codecop]

Rename the group

I am bringing up a new topic here: In the last week we have been mistaken twice for the CoderDojo, which is growing and getting more popular in Vienna, too. They are based in Verbund. From the web site they also have more facilitators than we have. Seems the founders have a good network.

Should we care and if, what other name could we use?

[dertseha]

hmm. naming issues. our all favourite. To clarify: Should we think about the name of what we do (public, regular workshops to train skills), and/or about the name who we, the organizers, are collectively?

Brainstorming out of the box:

• We're currently the official Viennese representatives of the Softwerkskammer community in the DACH region (under the assumption no one else claims this)
• Two independent "legacy" coder told me ages ago that they not necessarily associate learning with "Coding Dojo" and/or find this more like a "trend" name - one suggested "How about something like 'Hackers Den'?" - (Which I'm not happy about).
• Perhaps we are doing indeed a "training workshop" using the format of a "coding dojo".

Personally, I do like the name "Softwerkskammer". It is a neutral term (unlike "Craftsman") and sounds more formal than, say, "Craftsmanship community". I've also heard voices that "Craftsmanship appears to be yet another fad, just like 'XP Programming' was." (Keep in mind: I'm not about discussing this particular issue, more like whether or not such a term is neutral enough not to antagonize people right from the spot, especially those we would like to reach.)

So, all in all I could think about calling the organizational body "Softwerkskammer Wien", and we organize regular "Training Workshops" that follow the "Coding Dojo" format. Depending on the context, we could call it "Trainig Workshop" (generic context, unknown receiver) or simply "Coding Dojo" (in specific situations where the audience is known).

Somehow this appears to loop back to what you, Peter, suggested three comments earlier: For one, referencing the "Softwerkskammer Berlin" group (and others in DE), and second thinking about bigger stuff by possibly inheriting the Meetup group Sebastian left behind. (Though, at this point, I suspect this group will be defunct at this point after so much time -- yet this might be the skeptic in me thinking.)

More thoughts coming up, yet I'll break here to let others chip in :)

[ernst-fastl]

I like the idea of Softwerkskammer Wien. It fits what we have been doing so far and leaves room to try new things. If there is a defunct Meetup group we could try to bring it back to life or at least advertise our events through that channel as well.

[codecop]

@dertseha agree, maybe call it "monthly practice" and sometimes we have a "monthly training" if something special was prepared and sometimes we have "monthly discussion" like it was with SOLID run by @paulroho and rarely "monthly experiment" (nobody needs to know ;-)

So we rename the public page and github organization to SWK Vienna? I checked and there are two accounts, swkBerlin and SWK-DUS (Düsseldorf), so no consistent naming here... I vote for "swkVienna" or I don't know. Sounds like some work...

Then I would rename "sessions" to "CodingDojoVie" because that is how it is known right now. Other sessions will not use the repo I guess

[dertseha]

I am currently in the process of renaming things to "swkWien". Since "SWK" is already a German term, I wanted the city name to be German as well. Furthermore this avoids a clash with the city of Vienna in Virginia, USA. (...as if...)

GitHub reports that the old links should be set up with a redirect, it is still recommended to modify all local repositories. (Some sneaky person could hijack the old URIs and inject bad stuff... or so...)

[dertseha]

I finally gave in and created a Twitter user as well. Couldn't resist having some fun already: https://twitter.com/swkWien/status/960586615302303744 (Can use some followers...) Anyone of you using Tweetdeck? Because then I could invite you as contributors, so you can tweet under this user tag as well. Otherwise I'll simply retweet session advertisements.

Furthermore, the homepage has been updated, and the sessions-how-to has been moved to the wiki:

• https://swkWien.github.io
• https://github.com/swkWien/sessions/wiki

[mlem]

I'm open to new formats. Since the focus of each meeting should be to enrich people in their wisdom and skill.

I would like to create discussion groups, offline. It helps to view different perspectives on some topics. Someone prepares a topic, maybe even a real issue he is having with a topic at work or private. Or a topic about a principle.

Secondly I would like a regular meetup, lets say at the first Thursday of the month, where I can pair with another coder at a higher or same level and practice one thing, we both want to practice. It could be a coding dojo, where you collect those topics, put them on a wall and make pairs do the topic each with each other and switch it to the other persons at the second turn.

I'm always preparing my slides in english. I would welcome an english name. But since you have done the renaming I'm OK with a german name too

[duffleit]

My two cents:

• I really enjoy and like the dojos as they are. There are already a lot of meetups with abstract and high-level discussions on software concepts/design/etc in Vienna, thus the USP of this format is IMHO that it's hands-on and completely practice-oriented. I would prefer a fixed date (for example, every first Tuesday of the month like @mlem mentioned), just for these PODOJOS (plain old dojos :] ). As an addition, we could do meetings with more theoretical topics, like the @paulroho's SOLID-dojo or API-dojo we had. But I think that's basically what @codecop meant with "monthly practice" and "monthly training". While I think the second may be more optional, as it is also more elaborate in preparation.
• In addition, I would appreciate it if we publicize the dates on meetup.com, as we could reach more interested and motivated people. Beside this, I use this service to organize my meetup-schedule, and I think I'm not alone. :)

Kudos @dertseha, for renaming the repo and the new website + twitter channel. I like the name "Softwerkskammer Wien" - stands out from all the other "xyz-meetups".

[dertseha]

Enriching people in wisdom and skill, that's a good entry to what our focus should be. I've had some ideas how to formulate what we want to provide (and what we won't). Showcasing a certain technology for instance (like the 20th web-server framework) leans more towards one of the dozens technology focused groups. Showcasing a new refactoring technique, or an automation tool, sounds more suitable for us. Whatever the description will be, it will most likely have gray edges and not everyone will always be satisfied. It probably also wouldn't help much if there are hard definitions/borders, since our "ways" should be applicable to anyone and I suspect synergies and cross-overs.

As for planning, I'm still not convinced about "hard" dates. I suspect people that need pre-planning are equally happy if they know the next event well in advance, regardless of the day of the week. So, announcing a new session/workshop/dojo at least three weeks before should become a guideline.

Which brings me to the final topic, Meetup. My main reason against Meetup was that I wanted to avoid having people to register somewhere additionally. I see that the IT community in Vienna is pretty much centered around Meetup, so this can be considered void. Yet, softwerkskammer.org provides participation lists for events on their own, and requiring a Meetup group just for that seems overloaded. Especially since we now want to be official representatives of the Softwerkskammer, why aren't we using their existing services? All of this without even going into Meetup pricing then - compared to a free softwerkskammer.org . I'm still tending more towards requiring people to register via softwerkskammer.org (which also provides calender exports, if I'm not mistaken) than using meetup. Other thoughts?

[codecop]

I agree that the hands-on make the difference to other groups. Also the small but repeating visitors make a difference. we do not need 100 members that never show up.

• Meetup - I believe it is done by whom who does the work. @duffleit if you want the dojos on meetup, create a group, pay for it and make it happen. I did not step in for Sebastian when he gave up his professional sw dev group because I did not want to do that. (the group is gone now.)

• hard dates are a valid points, on the other hand, floating dates enable people to come because "they can never come on Wednesdays" - I heard that several times from participants. In that sense I would rather switch days by facilitator on purpose. But it could be same week of month all the time. Again, decided by the facilitator who does the work then. Maximum is to plan for a hard date which is optional.

[dertseha]

I'd like to finally close this issue.

It seems SWK Wien is more of an incubator of things, rather than a collective of things. The one thing incubated, for instance, is the podcast. Another thing could be (sometime in the future), Peter's idea in #39 . We did survive the re-branding, and the one stable event is the coding dojo & perhaps the Global Day of Coderetreat.

And I would also like to drop this issue in order to avoid having it endlessly open and go various directions without solution.