I never quite understood the practicality of Code and TDD Katas. The idea behind a kata is that you do it over and over and over... Until you can do it in your sleep.
"Why would I want to code tic-tac-toe a thousand times over?"
"Why build a bowling scoring program repeatedly?"
Well... Yea. My mind's kinda changed. I've done some properly applied TDD in the past month; and... every time my response at the result is "Wow! So small, clean, and elegant... And amazingly powerful."
I did Uncle Bob's Bowling Game TDD Kata myself and was shocked at how clean the code was. I know I'd never get that level of clean code via just coding. The mindset while writing code is so different doing TDD vs not.
A big surprise to me when I did this kata is how unprepared I was for the final form. Normally I'll probably experience this doing a new problem via TDD; but the Bowling Game was in a book. I don't recall which book; I think it was Martin's Agile Software Development; but it's on a shelf about 10 feet away... so... Too hard to check.
I read about the process; I looked at the code. I even have previously SEEN the final form of the code... and when I did the TDD Kata myself; WOW, shocked at what it actually produced.
I feel a bit silly for being as surprised at the elegence of the result; when I'd seen it before.
I'm taking it as a testament to the power of TDD. I hope to do a kata every day; Either TDD or just Code. I do say 'just Code' as I think it's not going to be as powerful as a TDD kata. It doesn't force as much consideration of the code. A Code Kata is a focus on the result; a TDD Kata is a focus on the process and mentality.
Based on my Bowling Game experience, I'm planning to do a TDD kata every day. I may utilize Code Kata's and create a TDD Kata out of it for myself. I hope this helps me operate via the TDD Strategy of "Fake It". I expect I'll adjust to "Obvious Implementation" for production; until "Wha? What's that fail?"
My goal from doing these will be to improve my code production and able to better communicate this process to others.