I would like to thank the organisers of Agile Eastern Europe to inviting me back to speak at their conference, and even more for inviting me to run my new master class, Agile Design: Beyond the Basics.

Bring a laptop, a problem, or even a code base, if you can! We will explore together how to make good design decisions in increasingly complex situations using the same simple design principles that work everywhere. Learn to solve complex problems with simple solutions.

I hope you’ll join me in Kyiv, Ukraine on October 6-7.

I just came back from Agile 2010, which I rather enjoyed. We had some intense discussions, and plenty of whining sessions, about the relative lack of content for programmers. I found out that about 1/6 of the conference attendees identified themselves as “developers” and about 1/5 identified themselves as “consultants”. If we suppose that even half the consultants are programmers, then only about 1/5 to 1/4 of the attendees had medium-to-strong interest in deep content for programmers. It turns out that the number of such sessions amounted to about 1/5 of the program, and by all reports, most had lower-than-expected attendance. If the conference offered enough content for programmers, then I have to ask two questions:

1. Why didn’t more programmers attend Agile 2010?
2. Why didn’t more of the programmers who attended Agile 2010 go to the deep technical sessions?

If you’re a programmer, then why did you choose not to attend Agile 2010?

If you’re a programmer who attended Agile 2010, then why did you choose not to attend many/any sessions meant for programmers?

If you manage programmers, or otherwise approve the budget for them to attend Agile 2010, then why did you decide not to send them/let them attend?

I appreciate any feedback you’d be willing to provide. I intend to use this information to decide how I will spend my energy proposing technical sessions for future conferences.

Join me in Chicago in September to learn whether test-driven development will work for you. In this course, you will learn the secrets of modular design from one of test-driven development’s master practitioners. Bring your laptop and be prepared to change the way you write software.