Scaling Craftsmanship: Sandro Mancuso on Language-Agnostic Learning and LSCC Growth
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
The Guest
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike here again at Software Craftsmanship North America. I'm sitting here with Sandro Mancuso. Sandro and I interviewed last year—Sandro was actually one of the first interviews I ever did with UGtastic. He runs the London Software Craftsmanship group. When I first sat down with you last year, I had just launched the idea of UGtastic, and it was basically focused only on user groups. Now this year, it's grown to be user groups and tech conferences, speakers, authors, FOSS developers, and community influencers. London Software Craftsmanship has also grown quite a bit. What is the state, one year on, of LSCC?
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
Yeah, when we spoke last year, we had about 420 members. One year later, I checked this morning and I think we have 860.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Holy cow. Last year we were trying to figure out how to deal with 400. How are you going to deal with 800?
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
Things went out of proportion. We decided to have more meetings instead of making our meetings bigger. For example, our round table meeting was limited to 35 people, but we had 40 people on the waiting list. That's 70 people total. It was clear to me that either we make the meetings bigger or have more meetings. We chose the latter.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
So how many meetings do you have a month?
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
Now we have five meetings a month. We decided to make them very different from each other because we noticed that not everyone feels comfortable in a hands-on session, a group discussion, or a social environment. We wanted to provide different types of meetings in the evening and morning so we could satisfy the majority of our members. At least once a month, there is a meeting they feel comfortable attending.
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
And one thing we kept is the promise to never have technology-specific meetings. Every single meeting, even hands-on sessions, is always language-agnostic.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Oh, really? So you're focused truly on techniques, not necessarily 'this is Ruby' or 'this is JavaScript'?
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
Indeed. London has a very rich ecosystem of communities. Every time we feel the urge to run a Java session, there is already a Java community for that. We direct people there. In the Craftsmanship community, I don't want to alienate a single member. Regardless of which language they use or their level of seniority, they should feel welcome. It makes it harder to organize, especially the hands-on sessions, but it's been very successful.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Obviously, the group is getting a little bit older now. One of the things I've heard from other organizers is how to keep interest as people's experience levels increase. A lot of times the topics are entry-level and seniors move on. How do you deal with that?
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
That's a very interesting question. I remember once we ran a hands-on session and then went to the pub. A guy came up and said, 'I found this session today very easy.' I said to him, 'The session was not easy. You made it easy for yourself because you used your default toolkit. If it was easy in C#, why didn't you do it in Clojure or use a different framework?'
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
There is always something you can be a beginner at. Challenge yourself. There's always a structure there for you to do whatever you want.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Kind of like with Code Retreats—go in and flex a muscle you don't use very often.
Sandro Mancuso
Founder of the London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC)
Exactly. If you've done the Game of Life 100 times in Java, start doing it in Clojure. Push yourself. I always say that to people.
Critical Insights
durable
"The London Software Craftsmanship Community (LSCC) successfully scaled by increasing meeting frequency rather than meeting size, maintaining the intimate quality of technical discussions."
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"Language-agnosticism is a core strategy for Software Craftsmanship communities to prevent alienation and focus on universal engineering principles rather than transient tool-specific syntax."
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"The 'Beginner's Mindset' is essential for senior developers to stay engaged in community events; complexity is self-imposed by choosing to work in unfamiliar paradigms or languages."
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"Providing diverse meeting formats (round-tables, hands-on, social) ensures that the community accommodates different learning and social styles, maximizing inclusive participation."
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"Local technical ecosystems thrive when specialized groups (Java, Ruby) and principled groups (Craftsmanship) complement rather than compete with each other."