While this pattern is excellent advice, as the title suggests, I could not help but get distracted by the quotes and advice offered by Dave Thomas. Of course, it was nothing substantive that he was saying just that I could not get the Wendy’s founder, also Dave Thomas, out of my head. As for the actual substance of this particular section, it falls into the category of things I am trying to do more consistently in my academic life. Despite being kind of nerdy romanticized, and potentially misapplied, karate jargon; it is effective enough in conveying the idea of lessons, or more accurately patterns, that should be practiced often. Obviously, the linchpin of these lessons is that they are done in private where you can fail gracefully, a common concept in many of these patterns.

Regarding how I apply these patterns, I use a site called codewars where these exercises are also called kata but are done in a web IDE and can be checked for functionality within seconds. As well, all the solutions done by users can be searched, so one can “compare notes” with other users and see what, often insanely truncated, solutions others reached. This fulfills the dojo aspect of these coding exercises as well. If ever you were looking to apply a pattern most directly, this is it – and I hope other students will use this resource. While I don’t believe the site allows users to create their own kata like the pattern says, they do have a suggestion section in the forums. After long hours of honing your skills you could dream something up to really test yourself and others.

This pattern is related to a favorite of mind, Breakable Toys; and not unreasonably so, many of these exercise are incredibly difficult and I have found myself dropping them into my own IDE to finish off at my own pace apart from the web IDE. As mentioned previously, the school and work schedule I maintain makes it a little difficult to keep up with these exercises, or completely them consistently enough. However, I believe that have read this pattern, being set to graduate, and barreling towards my graduation and subsequent career, I do not want to neglect any practice I can get.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Press Here for Worms by wurmpress and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.