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Dave Hoover explores the psychology of software development

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Mon, 09 May 2005

Initial List of Apprenticeship Patterns

I have recieved pattern suggestions and submissions from a number of people, including Marten and Adelwale. I think it would help to offer a glimpse into the state of the pattern language. I've posted an initial list of the patterns here: http://redsquirrel.com/dave/work/a2j/.

Or to be more accurate, I wrote a Ruby script to scrape my personal wiki and post the patterns publicly. :-)

[/craftsmanship] permanent link

The Power of Attentiveness

I asked an apprentice from the southern hemisphere to tell me stories about her best pair programming experiences. It turns out she writes well and had a few excellent stories. One of her stories doesn't apply directly to apprenticeship so I am posting it now with her permission (and names changed). I feel that this story is more applicable to journeymen and master craftsmen than apprentices...

I asked Robert to pair with me when refactoring some tests a month or so ago despite being pretty nervous to do so. It turns out it was one of the best pairing experiences I have had. I did learn quite a bit technically, but on a people skills level I was totally astounded. Even though it did take a few days for my brain to realise what Robert had actually done or rather facilitated.
The funny thing is that I can not describe in particular what it is that Robert taught me. What I got from it was the desire to develop the soft skills which were demonstrated so naturally, perhaps without him even knowing it. He made me feel good about my programming even though my experience in comparison pales. For the first 15 minutes I was pretty terrified pairing with him. Consequently in those 15 minutes I was not really that effective.
It is not that he explicitly encouraged me, he listened to what I had to say. He re-evaluated the decisions he had made after hearing what I said. And the more I felt good about everything, the more I had to say and the more useful I was. He didn't let me get away with not knowing what was going on, as soon as he saw that the keyboard was passed over to me. If I didn't understand, it was because the code that we were writing was not self documenting. We renamed. We refactored. And I understood. Most importantly though, I really felt in tune with Robert and what we were doing. I was feeling good and having fun.
I have just re-read the above paragraph over again and I still don't think I've described what exactly I am trying to. Basically Robert's ability to pair with someone and really make them feel as though they are contributing, and always picking up on any subtle "broken connection" between the pair and not moving on until we were both again in step was phenomenal. I think that is probably the most productive (and mentally tiring) yet completely rewarding pairing that I've done. I think this ability holds just as much water as technical skill, in fact I think it holds more.
It was an awesome experience.

[/craftsmanship] permanent link