Mob Programming v Dojos

I created a previous blog posting entitled ‘Dojo for developers’. It appears that ‘Mob programming’ is a practice getting a lot of current focus and so I thought I would quickly summarise what I thought the differences were, hopefully starting a discussion or two to help everyone get the best from the sessions they organise

As my previous Dojo post highlighted: In Japanese the term is used to mean “place of the way” and is used in relation to martial arts. It’s a respected place where people come together to improve their skills, pass on knowledge to others and have fun. We therefore create an environment for the same to take place, only this time looking at some code and development practices.

My previous reading, the sessions I attended at XP Day in London (and subsequent conversations) lead me to think that Mob programming is very similar, but instead of the primary objective being to allow people to learn, it is to attack a problem head on and efficiently produce a solution.

I therefore think they are the same practice but with different aims.

I would suggest that the goals of Mob programming were not met at either our WDS session or at the open space as the numbers were too high (greater than 10). I felt that (at both sessions) if less people were involved and more discussions made use of the whiteboard for clarity then we may have been more efficient as we would have set out coding in the correct direction.

I am therefore currently of the belief that the benefits of developing in large numbers in terms of learning and evangelising on best practices are larger than any perceived increased speed of resolving issues or developing code.

Obviously my views could change with more experiences but for now, I think that having the aim of sharing knowledge and patterns etc in mind would lead to a more effective session

As ever, I think discussion would be productive so please leave your comments below or on social media

Chris Watkins