Boston SC w/Zach Shaw

Hi, I’m Mike. I’m sitting here with Zach, who runs the Boston Software craftsmanship group. Welcome, Zach. Can you tell us a little bit about the Boston Software craftsmanship group? Sure. We have been around for about a year and a half. You were here before the last SCNA, right? Yeah. So the group, I think we started April a year and a half ago, whatever that is. And we do monthly meetings, usually like the first Monday of the month. And the meetings, we try and make them practice-based or discussion-based, so like interactive. Okay, so like doing katas and pairing exercises and things like that? Yeah, pairing exercises or discussions, like we’ll read a paper and discuss the paper. What kind of, like the KADS laws? I’m drawing a blank now. The KADS paper? Yeah. Is there a paper on relational design or something like that? I’m trying to think. We read, last month we read the S-unit paper that Kent Beck wrote. Okay, Kent Beck, yeah. And then other things we’ve read, I’m drawing a blank right now. But you kind of have homework a little bit between these? Yeah, sometimes we try and have a little bit of homework so that people kind of come ready to discuss something. And that’s definitely a pattern. I just had to wonder if that would ever be, you know, it might be nice for me if I came to a meeting and I know I’m going to be at the next meeting that I put in that time to read the paper so that way I can be prepared for the meeting. But if I come in and I just am coming into my first ever meeting and I’ve never read this paper, have you ever experienced anybody that’s, like what has been the reaction to that? Have you had new people come in and participate? Yeah, so I think sometimes we attract people depending on the paper we are reading. So I know like the last meeting we had a guy who was lurking on the mailing list for a long time and he saw we were reading that S-unit paper and he was really interested in it so he wanted to talk about it with other people. Sometimes, you know, not everyone’s prepared. I’m not always prepared. I’m pretty lazy about reading. But it’s okay. Nobody’s grading yet? No one’s grading us, you know, it’s just that, you know, as long as there’s enough people who can kind of help it out. Kind of help a discussion go along. Okay, okay. And, go ahead. So depending on kind of what homework we had, it’ll like usually inform what activity we do. Okay. So like one time I had everyone just kind of peek at, I think, Luau. Lua? Lua, Lua. The scripting language. The scripting language. And then we all just kind of like played with the language for, you know, coming in. Okay. And then I was like, let’s see what we can do. Yeah, so. Let’s make this thing bark. Yeah, exactly. I don’t know. Yeah, we’ve had a couple things like that where we’re just kind of like, you know, messing around with something that no one knows. Or, you know, we do like, there’s a pair programming game that I kind of invented and we have fun with that. You invented a game? What is that? What are the rules? The rules are, we take some kata. Some simple exercise or something more complicated. And everyone pairs up. And you code for 15 minutes. And then one person stays at the computer. And another person leaves. So you get a new pair. And then, so you only pair on the code base twice. Okay. So you kind of like inherit a new code base. Okay, so you’re like the navigator and there’s the pilot who’s got the keyboard and you’re working with him. And then you get promoted to the driver’s seat. Yeah. And then the driver goes off. Yeah. Okay. It’s kind of silly, but it’s fun. Like sometimes you’re pairing on like a language not that you know, but it’s okay because you’re only on it for 15 minutes. Right. But also you’re kind of keeping people moving through it and you’re not just waiting for people to raise their hands and presuming. You’re like, nope, you’re next. Well, I mean, everyone’s paired and then we just have a timer. So every 15 minutes we shuffle everybody. So it’s not just one station where everybody’s watching. Oh, no. Everyone. Oh, it’s just everybody. Yeah. We have four people. We have four stations. Musical chairs. It’s musical chairs. Exactly. Musical chairs with a cord. Yeah. Ah, there we go. All right. New name. Music’s done. Everybody get up. Change seats. So, yeah, it’s silly. It’s fun. Yeah. And as we had a previous conversation, Boston has like one or two universities. Have you gotten any students coming into meetings? No? No. No? It’s… Do you think it’s just maybe they are not aware of them? Or is it… I think… Because it has to be a unique environment where there’s mostly some very corporate surroundings. I don’t know. I don’t do the best job of publicizing. Oh, I’ll edit that one out. No, it’s great. It’s great. It’s hard. It’s hard to publicize. It’s hard to publicize. And running a user group, it’s hard. It’s a lot of work. And so that’s one of the challenges, I think, of running a user group is doing the publicity. Yeah. And it depends how big you are. Yeah. It depends how big you are. Right. It depends how big you are. Yeah. It depends how big you are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It depends how big you are. So like right now we have, you know, I don’t know, six to eight people who come each meeting. Yeah. It’s a regular crew. But… I think you made a good point, though, about how big you want them to get. The user group isn’t always about just trying to build the largest base of attendance. Yeah. It’s can I build a group that I can meet with on a regular basis that I enjoy interacting and learning with. It doesn’t always have to be I have 50 people. Or I have 80 people. Or I have 10 people. It’s are we having fun? Can we do this for a long period of time? And are we learning things? Yeah. I think that’s an interesting, you know, perspective on that. Yeah. And for me, that’s what the Sosserer Craftsmanship Group is about, is kind of my education and, you know, my other peers’ education. And so, you know, I want to make sure that it’s… I don’t learn best passively. I don’t think most of us do. So it’s important to me that whatever activities we do are kind of interactive. Right. So, you know, a discussion or an exercise or something. Okay. Well, thank you very much for staying with me. All right. Great.