CAMDUG - Cambridge Developers' User Group

Scala Dojo

October 9, 2012 · 6:30 PM
CB2 Bistro

Let's have fun playing around with Scala!

This the fist time we've run a Scala dojo so I'm unashamedly pinching format ideas from the London Scala User Group dojo:

Schedule

6.30pm Socialise, eat pizza, discuss suggestions for this evening's problem
7.00pm Split into groups and start the dojo proper
8.30pm Show and tell - discuss what was learnt
9.00pm More socialising ...

The Approach

The evening's problem is chosen from a suggestions made by the group. Here are some ideas to kick off the discussion:

Scala Specific:

S-99: Ninety-Nine Scala Problems
Exercises from Martin Odersky’s 'Functional Programming in Scala' Course (you need to sign up)

Language Neutral:

http://codekata.pragprog.com/ (good for beginners)
http://projecteuler.net/ (gets hard quickly!)

We split into teams of 3 or 4, hopefully each with a mix of scala experience. Each team works together at a single laptop (in the style of 'pair programming'), rotating the 'typist' every 10 minutes or so.

At 8:30 the teams takes it in turn to present their solutions to the group and discuss lessons learned.

If possible, please come with a development environment already set up. I've created a quick start guide here: https://github.com/dph01/scala-sbt-template if you need it. CB2's internet connection has been a flakey in the past, and the scala build environment pulls down quite a few large binaries when it first runs. So, if might be a bit painful if we need to rely on mobile WiFi hotspots to do the environment setup on the night.

If there's not enough Scala experience in the room to make this format work, I'll prepare a language cheat-sheet and a few slides to hopefully give people enough to get going on the first few of the 99 Scala problems.

On the organisational front, I'm still looking for:

a sponsor for the evening to pay for the pizzas. Does anyone know of a company that might be willing to help out?
a portable overhead projector and screen (I don't think CB2 has one). Does anyone have one they can bring along?

This is a one-off event, but if it's successful, maybe we can turn it into a regular meeting.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 9th!

Cheers

Damian.

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Daniel Vaughan

I found this really useful. I thought the format worked well as it gave people plenty of chance to ask questions and resolve the problems together. Thanks to Damian for all the work.

0 · October 10
Daniel Vaughan

I just managed to finish the first weeks assignment from Ordersky's course but I found it tough and it took must longer than I expected. I doubt I would have finished the three assignments in a dojo evening without help.

0 · September 27
- Alexey Filippov
  
  I doubt it is possible to do assignments in dojo without violating honor code...
  
  0 · October 10
Daniel Vaughan

I can bring and (old) projector if you still need one.

0 · October 2
- Damian Helme
  
  Excellent - yes please! there's a white surface in the room we use as a screen so need for a standalone screen
  
  0 · October 2
Damian Helme

yeah me too. I only found out after I did it that the algorithm for Exercise 3 is given in one of the course texts. From which I'm guessing that the exercise was really just to code up the algorithm. Urgh!

0 · September 28
- View all 4 replies
- Daniel Vaughan
  
  Really? I should get the text book. The third one was particularly tricky to work out.
  
  0 · September 28
- Damian Helme
  
  It's in Section 1.2.2. of the SICP book. The full text is here: http://mitpress.mit.e.... I'm curious to see your solution, mine turned out to be way more complex than it needed to be. Did you get it down to the 3 lines it should have been?
  
  0 · September 28
- Daniel Vaughan
  
  Yes it is three lines. It is a much more elegant solution than my solutions to the other two.
  
  0 · September 28
- Daniel Vaughan
  
  I must learn from mistake at uni. I never bought/read the course books because I thought they were too expensive and so missed out I lot :) This time I will look at the book especially as this one it free!
  
  0 · September 28
Alan Hemmings

sorry to delete the previous "scala call for volunteers" meetup, seems there's no way in meetup to merge two meetups, or "pause/hide" a meetup that's not going to happen.

0 · September 26
- Damian Helme
  
  yeah, I wasn't sure what to do about that. I was thinking that as the previous meetup was for a 'planning event' with no set date, how about we let people explicitly sign up again now that the details are confirmed?
  
  0 · September 26
- Alan Hemmings
  
  I RSVP'd everyone before I saw your post, no different to us having chosen a date and edited the other event I guess. good luck with the event, cheers, A
  
  0 · September 26