Link: Talk description and video
The Python Code Dojo is a community organised monthly meeting.
Dojo
A dojo is a place where you go to practice stuff, learning is a continuous process. It's based on the idea of deliberate practice.
Paris
Codingdojo.org was started in Paris, where it follows a very structured format.
Katas are forms that you practice to prepare yourself. You learn how to solve a problem using baby steps. In Paris they do this in silence, unless you really don't understand and have to ask a question. "Randori kata" is public pair programming, with a pilot and a co-pilot that solve a problem on stage.
London
The London Dojo works more like a seminar and attendees are encouraged to interrupt. Participation is expected. They do team dojo where the team must solve a problem within a timeframe. Problems are written on a blackboard, people vote for one and then everyone works at solving it in a team of 5 or 6 people over 1h30. Finally there is a show, tell, review and question event where each team presents their solution/approach.
Why participate in a dojo?
- The educational benefit, of learning by doing
- You can fail safely in a sympathetic environment, and experiment
- People teach one another, all levels can attend
- You build a community: in London, that's relaxing with pizza and beer
What's a good dojo?
From the attendee's perspective: it's fun, you get to solve problems, it's safe to make mistakes, show and tell is encouraged which is good to get feedback.
From the organiser's perspective: it self-organises, mostly.
To see if it's going well: see that there is a positive aim, something is done to reach this aim, with some sort of feedback at the end.
Personal observations
Beware of systems and gurus. Ignore systems if something else works for you, you can actually do damage otherwise. Learn to practice learning!
Q&A tidbits
When they (or another dojo?) started using meetup.com they doubled their numbers! Or EventBrite, the idea is to have a centralised system, with tickets to predict attendance.