The below details aren't what I consider value added to a typical user of Github or messing around with this code. That said, I'm working on a more suitable location for such details in a blog post to share the journey for others to learn from or empathize with. That can be found on medium in draft version here :)
Simply put, a Facebook post in April 2016 not even about design patterns oddly enough. Chatter in the comments with peers revealed an opportunity to build a community around learning; starting with Design Patterns. I consider that a personal pivot, but it's been an incredible experience.
Oh my, it's been a blast. The day following the chatter in April, I deployed infrastructure in-house (chat groups, repositories, meeting invites, weekly agendas and deliverables via Github Issues/Milestone, etc.) and started a word-of-mouth awareness campaign to advocate "let's learn together." A name for the group came up too, "Dev-Book-Club" which is spot on for what we were going after. The initial group was mostly junior/mid-level developers. Now, we're getting more seniors involved to help mentor, which is super exciting.
Admittedly, I facilitate a lot of the administration side of the group with the hope that others wouldn't become disengaged by daunting tasks outside of learning. So, I wanted a lean process that didn't take much time and could easily be followed and replicated.
The following has been a winning recipe thus far:
- Create Milestones for Weekly meetups three weeks out
- Create 2 Github issues with details per milestone
- Code Challenge for weekly Design Pattern
- Weekly meetup agenda and feedback
- Associate these issues to respective Milestone
- Ask for volunteers to pair code on the Code Challenges
Unfortunately, my decision to set this ship sailing in the in-house world caused this to be fragmented. Then the shift to going external and having in-house employees collaborate externally raised some concerns and questions. So, only some of the code resides here for now. I hope to fix that one day and share these examples with more in the hopes of increasing knowledge for many more.