| Participating in a Code Retreat is one of the wisest investments a developer can make in their career. Depending where you're at on your journey, attending a day-long Code Retreat could significantly change your life. If you're relatively new to the agile/xp/software craftsmanship community, you get: - As good an overview of test-driven development and simple design as you're likely to find anywhere. - An introduction to people in your community who are probably themselves excellent software developers and who can support both your learning and your professional network. If you're already experienced in TDD/BDD, Code Retreat is great for: - Humbling you. It's a rigorous exercise, and a lot of its value is derived from the emphasis that no one take any shortcuts—it's great for identifying and tackling one's own bad habits. - Its low-pressure environment. There is expressly no expectation that you "finish" with a working implementation. This frees you up to nurture or reclaim your own vision of what an "ideal" design is by focusing on perfecting just a small aspect of the problem. - Pairing with extremely bright people on a challenging problem; because so few of the solutions are obvious, Code Retreat is actually great communication practice. |