A while ago I posted a blog about the Global Day of Coderetreat. Since then I’ve been gathering and analysing data about coderetreats to see what their benefits are, and how they might be made even more effective. I’ve just written up some of this work in an article for InfoQ (thanks for the opportunity Shane Hastie), which you can find at http://www.infoq.com/articles/refactoring-coderetreats.

The title has two meanings (sort of.) In one respect it’s about changing the design of coderetreats (i.e. refactoring the coderetreat itself) and in another respect it’s about bringing more refactoring activities into a coderetreat in order to focus more directly on the four rules of simple design (for more detail on this in the context of a coderetreat you could try Corey Haines’ book Understanding the 4 Rules of Simple Design.)

I hope the article encourages more software developers to attend and run coderetreats.