Rickard Nilsson

Are you new to the concept of code katas? Read my previous blog post and watch me perform the String Calculator Kata.

In my never ending goal of self improvement in the techniques and tools I use I’ve been practicing a version of the Prime Factors Kata for a while.

The Prime Factors Kata, initially sparked by the infamous Uncle Bob Martin, is about finding an arbitrary number’s prime factors. In the cast I show how my TDD practice has evolved into a flavor of BDD, mainly to reduce duplication in the unit tests. I also show off the awesome power of my current toolset which includes the Visual Studio 2010 and the latest versions of ReSharper, TestDriven.NET, NUnit and NBehave.

Though my performance is not yet perfected I want to put it out there because I feel there are no C# version that can really match the Ruby version in elegance and wit. This is my attempt to show what you can do with the C# language when you know the frameworks really well.

Please leave comments and/or suggestions below or record your own kata session in response.

Prime Factors Kata in C# from Rickard Nilsson on Vimeo.

If you are new to the Prime Factors Kata, code katas in general, or TDD for that matter, you may find the steps I take unnecessary or weird. You may want to watch the annotated version in which Uncle Bob explains why each step is taken and why they are taken in that order.

• Uncle Bob’s annotated version

Many have recorded there own versions of the Prime Factors Kata which all inspired me in the way I practice it. The cast that inspired me the most is

• Uncle Bob’s Ruby version

there are also a few other C# casts worth watching for comparison by:

• Uri Lavi
• Slatner