Wohooo! Good to see MSCC getting the wonderful momentum.

Today’s meetup was attended by Jochen, Nitin Mutkawoa, Nirvan, Arnaud, Ashley, Toshan, Pritvi, Selven, Chervine, Yannick, Avinash Mayaram, Nayar, Neha, Darshinee & me. Oh wait, I forgot the two little MSCC geeks, Jochen’s kids. :)

I reached Talking Drums around noon. Conversation was on and I think Arnaud was giving his point of view on MSCC. Next continued a little bit of introduction of other members (including me). During the introductions quite some topics came up sporadically, like the benefit of having a nice & clean public internet profile (whether on social or professional networks such as Linkedin). We looked at examples of head-hunting & how these profiles play in your favour showcasing your talent. We talked about career-hopping and why it happens. Is it the management’s fault for not observing enough or just employees not voicing out their needs? Arnaud, Jochen, Selven, Ashley & me, we brought our insights from the companies we’ve worked for. This was indeed a knowledge-rich discussion especially for the freshers & students.

We had a short & quick presentation of Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community & the facilities that are bundled with (O’Reilly discounts, Pluralsight sponsorship etc).

Then Jochen gave a presentation on Clean Code Development. He started by introducing the topic. It was fun as CCD was something which many kinda have been applying without really knowing it’s got a name. He briefly explained the concept of Clean Code Grades : Black (being the starter level), Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, White (being the highest grade). He then elaborated on Black & Red grades giving along several examples. I like the idea of having colored wrist bands signifying the level of clean code; it reminds me of Star Wars, the Jedi council stuffs.

We looked at examples (real life) while discussing various aspects of Clean Code for Red Graders :

• KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
• DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
• Beware of optimisations (we finally christened this one BOO as tipped by Avinash)
• Favour Composition over Inheritance (FCoI)

Meanwhile the kids were having a merry time with little Hayley making me draw butterflies & flowers. Yeah, everyone had their fun time.

We continued looking at various practices as Red Graders:

• Follow the Boy Scouts Rule (leave the place cleaner than it was before)
• Root Cause Analysis
• Use a Version Control System (Nayar shared his Git server experience)
• Apply Simple Refactoring Patterns
• Reflect Daily

Wow! I reached late but this was a long meetup yet so fun.

Everyone ordered something for lunch & we continued having fun eating & discussing random subjects.

Neha & Darshinee reached around 15h30 after their university class. We then started the discussion about IT Certifications. We discussed the advantages of various certifications by Microsoft, LPI, Red Hat, Novell etc. We looked around the preparations needed and how & where we can acquire learning resources. I was happy to see many enthusiastic about LPIC (Linux Professional Institute Certification). Hopefully, in the upcoming meetups I’ll try to get you guys some more related stuffs.

Like Jochen posted on facebook, that was indeed a 5+ hours marathon (maybe 4 hours for me but still) … Wohoo! We’re indeed a bunch of crazy geeks who did not realise how time flew as we dived into the myriad discussions that sprouted. Yet in the end everyone was happy.

Photos, courtesy of Nirvan Pagooah.