I have an awesome suggestion... :)
Jan-Carel Brand
One thought that I repeatedly get whenever I am at a sprint or
conference in Europe is how isolated we as SA Plone devs are.
It's really only once you are surrounded by about a dozen or so
well-known core developers and integrators that you recognise the major
advantage these people have to be able to live in close proximity to one
another.
It's so much easier to organise a sprint in Europe when about 50 core
devs are within train-traveling distance of your location.
That said, I think we have taken a big stride forward as the SA Plone
community by forming this group, mailing list and by meeting regularly
(albeit only in WC). And for that Roché should take a lot of credit for
providing the initial impetus and energy.
That said... you either grow or you die (as Gustav one day said in a
heated discussion ;) and I think we have more opportunities for growth!
Last year at the SF Plone Conf, Sjoert van Elferen had a talk about
organising sprints. Sjoert is incidentally now busy organising the Plone
Conf in Aarnhem, Netherlands.
In his talk he gave some tips and two that stuck with me where:
1. Advertise your sprint on plone.org, blog/tweet about it and make as
many ppl aware as possible. (Not to gain participants but to make the
broader community aware of what you as a group are doing).
2. Invite a high profile Plone dev to come and sprint with you.
Concerning the 2nd point, AFAIK the Plone foundation is open to the idea
of contributing/sponsoring Plone ppl to fly to attend sprints (and has
done so in the past).
One evening after the PloneKonf sprints I was chatting to Elizabeth
Leddy (who was the driving force behind the new Plone API ideas) who
mentioned that she would love to come to South Africa for a sprint. She
didn't just mention this in passing. She said she'd LOVE to come to SA
and would jump on the first available plane.
I also earlier chatted to Necj (Zupo) Zupan (from NiteoWeb) who is
considering living in SA for a few months (after the Plone Conf in Oct)
to live his passion for windsurfing.
I suggested last year that we sprint on plone.app.multilingual and after
sprinting on it at PloneKonf 2 weeks ago I can tell you that it's fun
and that there is still a lot to do! Izak and Roché have also been
working on CMSUI which would be another good topic for a sprint.
So... you can guess where this is all leading. I think we should
sometime in the future organise a proper sprint on something close to
core Plone and not just an add-on project. And we should invite someone
from abroad to join us. Liz seems to be really excited about the idea
and I think she makes a great candidate. She's also a very funny,
energetic and friendly person to be around.
If we could even have Zupo (or anyone else outside of WC) around at the
same time it would be a bonus.
In light of this, I think Witek's idea of newbie training is also great.
When we then hold the sprint, we won't only have the older guys but also
some newer people participating. Doman Kozar has shown to me how much of
a difference a student can make. He's only (around) 22 and has already
made a big mark through his active participation in the community.
I hope you guys also get excited by the idea. You should! This last
sprint at PloneKonf was a crap load of fun, we worked hard but there was
a lot of socializing and partying as well.
Cheers
JC
Roché Compaan
> So... you can guess where this is all leading. I think we should
> sometime in the future organise a proper sprint on something close to
> core Plone and not just an add-on project. And we should invite someone
> from abroad to join us.
+100
--
Roché Compaan
Upfront Systems http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za
Izak Burger
> considering living in SA for a few months (after the Plone Conf in Oct)
> to live his passion for windsurfing.
Ibi aka Jure also said he'd come if only to surf, and I said rumour
has it that Muizenberg has good waves.
In fact, I've been thinking, or rather just toying with the idea of a
very future Namibian sprint, a bit like that sprint they have in
Europe where you have a bunch of people up in the mountains with a sat
dish for internet connectivity. I have access to just such a place!
:-P We have internet (just 384kbit) and its 100km from the nearest
airport. Fresh air and wild animals free. Don't know if it would even
work, and it would certainly be a lot of work.... but... what this
idea has in common with JC's idea is that there are people who would
go to places just for the sake of seeing those places, and adding a
sprint or a konf (its gotta be konf, not conf, if we do it here)
really just sweetens the deal and sorts out some of the planning.
