What is a Code Reading Club?
It's an experiment!
At its core is the idea that the paradigm we use to teach programming is flawed. One of the most obvious omissions is the ability to read code, both phonetically and analytically. Read Felienne's blog post for more information about the theory behind it.
As professional developers who read code every day, we aren't suitably equipping ourselves with these building blocks.
So Felienne developed some exercises for Katja to try with Neontribe, based on her research and teaching exercises she uses with students.
We tried them, we loved them, we shared them with other developers
...and now we are practicing with and iterating on those exercises.
How do I get started?
Join us for a public club! Free. Online. International.
Want to start a club, but not sure how it works? Don't have enough people in your workplace to join you? We sometimes run sessions about how to start a club or invite new people to join our public clubs. We usually hold an open public club on the first Tuesday of every month.
- Open Code Reading Club: Tuesday 4 April 2023 17:00 to 18:30 (CET)
Get in touch - Join our mailing list - Sign up for a session
You can find the exercises in our resources github repo.
You can use the pdf from github code tool to generate and download a pdf for your club members to print out if they want to work with code on paper.
You can use the annotation app if your club members want to annotate on screen.
You can run your club in whatever way you want, but we recommend to meet for 1 hour 15 mins every other week.
Who can participate?
Participants should have had some exposure to code, but your group might include programming adjacent people like testers or scrum masters, we have seen examples where those people also got value out of the club. We have seen it work for groups diverse in other ways too (in terms of cognitive, formal training, experience, skills, style etc).
What code should I use?
We have seen different types of clubs: you might be interested in code form your own code base, maybe in one language, or select open source code in a variety of languages. In our experience, it does not matter all that much what code you pick. The key benefit is an increased ability to understand code when reading and a more sympathetic style of writing code to be read by others, which we think you get more from the process than form the code. Some people though join a club to also learn a new language as a byproduct. When you have a few of those in your group, you might want to stick to one language.
We're still working on it
...so the starter kits are a little rough around the edges!
Get in touch!
If you decide to start a club, please get in touch. We'd love to hear about it, or even sit in on a session with you. Please contact hello@codereading.club if you want to get involved, or have any suggestions.
The initial inspiration for the clubs was How to teach programming (and other things)? by Felienne Hermans.
We're also really excited about Felienne's new book: The Programmer's Brain which can be pre-ordered now!