Want to join?
- Are you a professional programmer?
- Do you feel passionate about your craft?
- Are you interested in spending a Saturday practicing pair-programming and Test Driven Development with a bunch of fellow geeks?
- Will you be in Kraków on the 8th of December?
If so, then you will be happy to know, that we have a perfect thing planned for you: a Code Retreat.
What is this "Code Retreat"?
A Code Retreat is a whole day long (9 hours!) exercise in Pair Programming and TDD. We start early - 8am, but rest assured that the experience is well worth getting up at the brink of dawn. After introductions, a cup of coffee, a bite to eat and an explanation of the problem we are going to solve (Game of Life), we will proceed with 3 programming sessions, each 45 minutes long and ending with a retrospective. Oh, and did we mention pair programming? You will be switching pairs after each session. Next we will have a nice, relaxing, catered lunch break (yay! free food!), followed by 3 more sessions and a final retrospective. And as if it is not enough, there is going to be an after-party with free beer (yay! free beer!).
You will get all of this free stuff thanks to our awesome and generous sponsors: ABB and Lumesse.
Game of Life?
Conway’s Game of Life is the traditional problem solved during code retreats. It’s a 0-player game, meaning that after initially setting up the board, it evolves automatically requiring no user input.
There are only a couple of rules governing the board evolution:
- The board is an infinite, two dimensional grid of square cells.
- Every cell has eight neighbors.
- At any given moment in time a cell may be in either of two states: dead or alive.
- The cells change state every turn and all at once.
- The next state of a cell is determined by the state of it’s neighbors:
- If a live cell has fewer than two live neighbors, it dies of underpopulation
- If a live cell has two or three live neighbors, it lives on to the next generation
- If a live cell has more than three live neighbors, it dies of overcrowding
- If a dead cell has exactly three live neighbors, it becomes a live cell
You can also find a detailed description of this problem on Wikipedia.
This all sounds nice and well, but I don’t feel like coming all the way to Kraków for just one day of fun...
One day of excitement is not enough for you? Kraków is a beautiful city, with tons of pubs, clubs, restaurants and historical monuments, and it is well connected with many European cities by cheap airlines. It’s really a perfect spot for a weekend trip.
You might also be interested in FooBarCamp - an unconference organized by SCKRK the day before, on Friday the 7th of December.
OK, I’m game, how do I sign up?
Code Retreat is free of charge, however the seating is limited, so registration is required.
You are free to choose the programming language that you are going to use, just bring a laptop with a power adapter, your favorite programming environment set up and an open mind.