I identify mostly as a non-programmer. Yet, two weeks into a new job I’m already learning and contributing to Python and C++ -code. The method that enables me to do this is ensemble programming, the idea of having a group of people working together on one computer on a task, taking turns on who types for the team while others instruct. For an idea to get from one’s head to get to the computer, it flows through someone else’s hands.
This article shares key insights from my journey over a little over a year on learning programming through osmosis, just being around programmers working on code, without intention of learning. As a result of learning, I rewrote my history with things I had forgotten and dismissed from my past. I hope it serves as an inspiration for programmers to invite non-programmers to learn to code one layer at a time, immersed in the experience of creating software together to transform the ability to deliver. Lessons specific to skillsets get transferred both ways, and while I learn from others, they learn from me, leaving everyone better off after the experience.
Finding Ensemble Programming
Many different roles contribute to building software: product owners, business specialists, and testers, yet, knowledge of programming keeps these roles at a distance. I did not come to programming through wanting to program or taking courses on it but through working with programmers in a style called ensemble programming.
As a tester within my team of nine developers, it was clear I was different. I wasn’t particularly keen on learning programming since there was more than plenty of work in the feedback through empirical evidence and exploration that is my specialty I’ve developed in depth over two decades. I’m an excellent exploratory tester and my team’s developers have always been my friends with a pickup truck that I can call in for assistance on anything where code needs to be created. Besides being the only non-programmer, I was also the only woman and part of a team, where some people would occasionally spout out things like “Women only write comments in code.” Not exactly an inviting starting position.
Although I did not like programming, my hobbies that started at the age of twelve and my computer science studies, that further killed my interest in programming, I had acquired experience in coding twelve different languages. I started making small changes in how I looked at programming in a different light for my daughter’s sake, as I did not want to transfer my dislike of code to a 7-year old about to be embedded in an elementary learning environment where programming is everywhere as programming is a mandatory part of Finnish curriculum now.
The real change, however, started with Woody Zuill’s talk in a conference I organized. Woody is the discoverer of ensemble (mob) programming. The idea of the whole team working on a single task, all together on one computer just sounded ridiculous, yet as ridiculous as it seemed, I thought it could be a way for my team to learn from one another as well as create team building. Instead of taking someone else’s word on methods, I have a preference on experiencing them first hand. And it wasn’t like we had to commit for a lifetime, just to try it out once or twice.
The First Experience Expands
With some discussions, my team agreed to try it out, but I knew I would be out of my comfort zone since I would have to be in front of a computer working on code. Our first task was to refactor some of our code with Extract Method and Rename automatic refactorings and we had an experienced ensemble facilitator lead the session for us. While not on the keyboard, I found myself able to comment on the names from the domain, and while on the keyboard, I noticed with each round that I was picking up things: keyboard shortcuts, ways to navigate, programming concepts without anyone really explaining them to me when the work was being done. In the retrospective, I could reflect on my learning and realized that not only was I picking up things I did not know before, everyone else was doing that too.
I felt safe in a group, as I did not need to be fully paying attention to every detail at any time, and I was always supported by a group. Surprisingly, the expected negative remarks on gender did not come out in a group, whereas they would be a regular thing in a more private pairing setting.
From that first experience, my team extended this to a weekly learning activity. I took the mechanism of learning for myself further, organizing various ensemble programming sessions with the programming community on different programming techniques and languages, learning e.g TDD and working with legacy code in a hands-on manner. I introduced my team to ensembling on my work, exploratory testing and they learned to better identify problems. In our ensemble programming sessions, there were several occasions where my existence in the room fixed an expensive mistake about to happen from half a sentence of discussion. Finding a problem like this early on led to more efficient and productive work for everyone. Although it seems inefficient to have so many people working on one thing at the same time, the saved time in avoiding context switching, passing feedback back and forth, increased focus on steps to complete together with great quality, as well as learning made us develop much faster and with less future problems.
Joining An All Female Hackathon
I took the idea of ensemble programming to a weekend hackathon outside work and convinced my fellow teammates to try it out, but only three people decided to be involved out of four.I avoided setting the expectations of me being a non-programmer and just joined in with whatever programming skills I had, without disclaimers. There was even a woman participating with less coding experience with, as she had never even looked at code before.
Out of that weekend, I came out with four major realizations:
The best programmer outside the ensemble only contributed graphics. In the ensemble, we were adding one feature at a time and committing regularly, and the senior programmer found it hard not to have modules of her own to work. There was no long-term plan for incrementally developed software and the version kept changing under her. We tried summarizing the lessons on the used technology for her, but she kept hitting problems that blocked her.
I passed off as a programmer. No one noticed I was not a programmer. And the reason was that I had become one. I realized that programming is like writing. Getting started is easy, and it takes a lifetime to get good at.
The non-programmer felt like an equal contributor. Her experience was that the code created was just as much hers as any of the others and that is a powerful experience. She learned the basics with us through typing for us, and reflecting with us.
We had working software. Not all groups had the same luxury. In the ensemble, we had the discipline to have not just code, but working code to a scope that could vary depending on how much time we had to add more functionality.
My Main Lessons
Cognitive dissonance is a powerful tool
The experiences of working with a ensemble for over six months transformed how I perceived myself. No amount of convincing and rational arguments on how much fun programming is could have done that. When my actions and beliefs are not in sync, my beliefs change. And that is what ensemble programming did to me. It made me a programmer, through osmosis, and got me started on a long journey of always getting better at it.
Non-programmers have a lot to contribute
I saw that while I was learning a lot, I was also contributing. As a tester, I had information about intents of the users that seemed mysterious to my programmer colleagues. We would test better while programming, just because I was there. We would avoid mistakes that were about to happen, just because I was there. I could give feedback without egos in play, and we could all learn skills from one another. And even me being slow was a positive thing - it made the other programmers more deliberate and thoughtful in their actions, and they shared the realization that they created better code while slower. I ended up feeling really proud of how much better my developers learned to test with our shared ensembling time.
Team got out a lot
I wasn’t the only one who learned - everyone in the team picked up different things. It was a pleasure to see how abilities to add unit or selenium tests expanded from individual to a team skillset, and how many times we found better libraries because just one of us was aware of it.
We slowly moved from working on technical debt and cleaning up to a shared standard to having technical assets in the form of libraries that would enable us to do things faster.
Everyone got their voices into the code better. We worked with the rule that if we had several ideas of how a problem could be approached, we would do both over arguing while we had the least practical information about how it would turn out. And it was surprising to notice that something that someone would fight to the bitter end with, was good enough to accept after the implementation was available, and not just because people would lower their standards.
We also learned that when one of us did not feel like contributing in a ensemble format at first, it was a good idea to let one opt-out. The party-like nature of the sessions and the evidence of the rest of us bonding and learning inevitably drew these non-participators back in on their own initiative later on.
Ensemble Programming as a Practical tool of Diversity
Ensemble programming is a great way of introducing new people to programming, or testing for that matter. It transfers a lot of the tacit knowledge otherwise difficult to share. It brings the best of us to the work we do, as opposed to the most of each individual. While working together, we can remove a lot of the rework with fast and timely feedback. We raise our collective competence, allowing individuals to use specialized skills. We used a rule “learning or contributing” to give a great guideline in thinking of when a ensemble is doing what it is supposed to.
As software is such a big part of our society’s present and future, we need all hands on deck in creating it. We need to find ways of bridging roles without telling others that everyone just needs to be a programmer. In an ensemble format, I learned that while I picked up my hidden interest in programming, I would have been a valuable contributor even without it. There was a struggle for both me to go do things I thought I wouldn’t enjoy and the team to work in a setting they were not used to. It was worth the struggle to remove the distance I previously felt between myself and the programmers.
Just adding more women and people of color to the field of software development isn’t enough if the people struggle to get their voices included. We need to do more than make the world of coding look diverse. With ensemble programming we can use that diversity to innovate the world of coding overall. (Props on this thought to Kelly Furness, who was in the audience with my DevOxxUK talk)
It’s not just learning programming by osmosis, but the learning is mutual. Give it a chance.
About the author
Maaret Pyhäjärvi is a software professional with testing emphasis. She identifies as an empirical technologist, a tester and a programmer, a catalyst for improvement and a speaker. Her day job is working with a software product development team as a hands-on testing specialist. On the side, she teaches exploratory testing and makes a point of adding new, relevant feedback for test-automation heavy projects through skilled exploratory testing. In addition to being a tester and a teacher, she is a serial volunteer for different non-profits driving forward the state of software development. She blogs regularly at http://visible-quality.blogspot.fi and is the author of Ensemble Programming Guidebook.
