First CodeRetreat in Poznań

On 15th January I had a pleasure to participate in first Code Retreat in Poznań. The event was organised by Adam Dudczak and Poznań JUG. If you don't know what Code Retreat is, take a look here. It is a great opportunity to meet other coders, see how they work and exchange knowledge and experience. There were 5 sessions, and the pairs were changing each time, so everyone coded with 5 different people.

Idea of Code Retreat is not only to code in pairs but also to use TDD. After lunch, during break, there were two discussion groups, one discussing BDD, and the other pair programming. I joined BDD group. First it was explained what BDD is, then we were discussing. The group was very active, many people had questions but there were also many answers :)

Programming task was standard for Code Retreats - Conway's Game Of Life. It's nice to watch development. During the first session we didn't finish our task, like most pairs. We barely started when the time was over. After the third session, most pairs had Game Of Life algorithm finished. Of course together with tests :)

Such an event is not only opportunity to learn, but also to meet people. Some I already knew from twitter, blogs etc., some from other events, and some were completely new to me. There was time to talk, not only during quite short breaks between sessions, but also during lunch and "afterparty". For lunch there was not pizza, but some decent dish, huge and tasty.

I have to write also about the place the event was held at. It was in Cognifide offices, and it was one of the nicest offices I've ever seen! Lunch and afterparty was in the basement, but this basement looked like a decent pub. Brick walls and ceilings, bar, comfy sofas and tables. There was also refrigerator full of beer, and it was used during afterparty :)

For me this event was a big success. Congrats, organizers!