Membership benefits - PracticingDeveloper/guidebook GitHub Wiki

My main goal for the Practicing Developer's Workshop is to create the best learning space I can for serious programmers from many different backgrounds.

Although the space will evolve to meet the needs of its members, these are the things you can expect to see as a member in 2016.

Daily open-floor slack conversations

I will be spending at least an hour a day on most week days talking with Workshop members about topics that come up in their day-to-day work and studies, along with the occasional deep dive into more esoteric topics that are likely to expand our horizons a bit.

This is quite different than the typical chat room: our Participation Guidelines and active moderation make the Workshop a great place to exchange experiences with others, to develop and refine your ideas, and to get help whenever you're trying to study something new.

Our group is full of thoughtful participants, so it's a great place to go whenever you want to talk to people who are dedicated to learning and growing both personally and professionally.

Weekly scheduled study sessions

In addition to our daily "open floor" discussions, we'll catch up at least once a week for a more formal gathering where we dive deep into a particular topic of interest.

Often times these meetings might be focused around an article or conference talk, but we may also get into things like code reading sessions, interactive thought experiments, etc.

A dozen Practicing Ruby collaborations

Members will be able to participate in discussions around the topics we cover before, during, and after the articles have been published. This turns each article into an informal guided study group around a deep and interesting topic.

Although I leave it up to collaborators to decide how much they want to be actively involved in discussions within the Workshop, most are very active and interested in the conversations around their topic. I also spend a minimum of five working days on each collaboration we publish, whether it's to help with research and development, to write and edit drafts, or to guide discussions around the topic.

Some of our most enjoyable discussions have been with collaborators who know quite a bit about a topic that most of us only have a working knowledge of.

A full book on the non-code aspects of software development

I'm writing a book for O'Reilly called Programming Beyond Practices, and you'll be among the first see each and every part of it as I put it together.

The book covers important technical but non-code topics; including software maintenance, rapid prototyping, requirements discovery, etc. Like the Practicing Ruby collaborations, every topic that will become part of the book will serve as an adhoc study group within the Workshop -- allowing anyone who is interested to dig deep into the themes that they find most interesting.

Events and courses

This is something I'm still figuring out, but I plan to run a bunch of events that will help support the work and studies of our members. In 2015 I started experimenting with this idea by running an online weekend retreat where I helped people get some work done on their side projects, and that event worked out great!

Expect to hear more about this soon, but the basic idea is that I will be running some structured events and courses in addition to the daily activities listed above. Members with paid subscriptions will be given substantial discounts on these courses, and there will always be some free spots open for those who need financial assistance.