Every week, Obtiva sets aside time for what they call Hackfest. Everyone is encouraged to take some time over lunch to work on some non-client code, and the emphasis is on “doing” instead of just talking.

I really like the idea of HackFest. By encouraging employees to spend time on side projects, companies and employees both benefit. Client work is necessary in order for us to get paid, but the passion for the craft cannot flourish if the only projects one is working on is for someone else. There is something selfish about software development, and that isn’t a bad thing.

In order for you to enjoy your job, you have to get satisfaction out of what you’re doing every day. I think that’s why I’m such a fan of TDD.

There is always a goal, usually only a maximum of a couple minutes out: either get the current test to pass, or write a failing test.

This constant flow is encouraging because every time you get your tests to green, there is a feeling of accomplishment.

So for Hackfest, I joined Andy Maleh on his project, which is in the really early concept phase. We worked through some mockups and designs for a social website that he has in the works.

Basically, we designed and drew up paper mockups of a critical feature. Paper prototyping is intended to help developers create a user experience that meets the user’s needs.

One possible mistake that you can make, as I certainly have, is to forget that you have AJAX effects at your disposal in your web application, and that your prototypes should be built with that in mind.

Instead of every user input resulting in a new (paper) page being put down in front of the user, consider simulating the slide effect that would occur when you click an “add” button which dynamically inserts a new form into the page.

By just replacing the entire page in front of the user, you’re really missing the user experience improvements that AJAX can give you. Andy’s mockups did this well, and I think that they'll result in more successful user testing.

Afternoon Pairing

I paired with Nate Jackson for the good part of the rest of the afternoon. Nate was Obtiva’s third apprentice and is now a consultant. We were working on a really cool iPhone application, but mainly I just slowed Nate down.

One thing that bothers me about developing for the iPhone is how difficult it is to test the code that touches the framework; in particular, all of the delegates in the controllers. I would like to gain a better understanding of how the framework really works so that maybe I can find some better seams for testing purposes.

As a result of this inherent difficulty, we didn’t test drive the code that was written, and I noticed that the rhythm of the pairing session was distinctly different from the ping-pong sessions that I’ve grown accustomed to.

Without the failing test/passing test rhythm, there aren’t distinct break points where the keyboard naturally gets passed. So though the pairing session was successful, it definitely felt different.