Working for a big company often seems like as far as you can get from a startup environment. Even my current social software project, using more agile methods, has it’s share of process and schedule slips. This week, though, we tried something different - and fun. A handful of us who have critical pieces to coordinate on spent two days at an off-site hackathon, gathered around a table, banging out code and rearchitecting key parts of the system. Doing a bit of pair programming & designing and having people to immediate bounce ideas off of gave us a nice head start on a few big tasks and changes. Granted, there’s still plenty to finish.
It was also an amusing display of technology. Despite several people having company-provided Windows laptops, everyone that had a Mac brought it instead, and there was no shortage of Mac/Windows TextMate/Visual Studio Ruby/C# transition pains for those who manage to avoid the later most of the time. I was pleased to find that my current configuration is fairly portable: MacBook, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and slick widescreen monitor, which was definitely worth boxing up for two days of coding.
The real benefit was getting everyone away from day to day distractions to get things done, and putting a smaller group of people together brought a greater sense of team amidst a growing project. There’s also a nice energy boost from new surroundings and the pleasure of working on your own favorite hardware.
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