Jon Jagger
Jon is a software consultant specializing in practice, process, TDD, and complex-adaptive systems-thinking. He’s 30 years old (hex) and has loved software since he was 10 (decimal). He built cyber-dojo to promote deliberate practice for software developers. He’s worked with everyone from Accenture to Microsoft to Schlumberger. He’s co-author (with Olve Maudal) of the Deep C/C++ slide deck (over a million views!) and has had some C# books published. He has previously been the ECMA Task Group 2 C# convenor and ACCU conference chairman. He’s married to the beautiful Natalie, and is the proud father of Ellie, Penny and Patrick. He loves coarse fishing and salmon fishing and lives in Somerset, England.
Kevlin Henney
Kevlin is an independent consultant, speaker, writer and trainer. His development interests are in patterns, programming, practice and process. He has been a columnist for a number of magazines and sites and has been on far too many committees (it has been said that "a committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled"). He is co-author of A Pattern Language for Distributed Computing and On Patterns and Pattern Languages, two volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series. He is also editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know. He lives in Bristol and online.
A Day of Deliberate Practice
Knowledge. Skill. Expertise, the skill in applying knowledge. These form the backbone of effective software development. Oh, and fun — with that you get really effective software development.
And that’s what we aim to do in A Day of Deliberate Practice.
Deliberate practice involves careful repetition and reflection to master, explore and understand a technique, to know its boundaries, to make it second nature. We are going to have a day where we discuss and practice the craft of software, communication and creativity, working in C++, focusing on TDD, pair programming, trying out new things and revisiting old ones.
If you code everyday and were thinking of taking a break while you're at the conference, keep in mind that a change is as good as a rest — yes, there will be coding, but it’s not your workaday coding. We will be using cyber-dojo, an innovative, collaborative, open source, browser-based environment (so bring a laptop). We are going to have fun — join us!
We introduce the core concepts of deliberate practice (mastery, repetition, focus, deliberation, etc.) and apply these through the day to the specific practices of pairing, writing good unit tests, writing good code, TDD and reflection. This workshop is predominantly a hands-on experience, with only a few slides. We spend time reviewing the code and discussing the findings of participants throughout the day.
