Open training days for new developers

Roché Compaan

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Mar 8, 2012, 3:00:17 AM3/8/12

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At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.

--
Roché Compaan
Upfront Systems http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za

Rijk Stofberg

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Mar 8, 2012, 4:47:49 AM3/8/12

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As discussed last night, I am happy to give a day too.

2012/3/8 Roché Compaan <ro...@upfrontsystems.co.za>:

Jan-Carel Brand

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Mar 8, 2012, 5:06:59 AM3/8/12

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On Thu, 2012-03-08 at 10:00 +0200, Roché Compaan wrote:
> At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
> days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
> developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.

What format would this take?

Would you have some kind of training program that you'd follow or would
it be more of a sprint/hacking kind of environment? And if it's the
latter, on what would you sprint?

Izak Burger

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Mar 8, 2012, 5:26:03 AM3/8/12

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2012/3/8 Roché Compaan <ro...@upfrontsystems.co.za>:

> At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
> days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
> developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.

This was probably discussed last night, which I missed because I sort
of stopped looking at the calendar lately, but where are we going to
find new developers? :-) I suppose what I'm asking is if there is
demand and if a fair amount of advertising might be required.

Other than that, I'll probably be back from Namibia by then, so I'm in too.

Roché Compaan

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Mar 8, 2012, 5:40:55 AM3/8/12

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On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Jan-Carel Brand <li...@opkode.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-03-08 at 10:00 +0200, Roché Compaan wrote:
>> At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
>> days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
>> developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.
>
> What format would this take?

Informal coaching.

> Would you have some kind of training program that you'd follow or would
> it be more of a sprint/hacking kind of environment? And if it's the
> latter, on what would you sprint?

Simple stuff, like how to theme a Plone site, build new content types,
write browser views, etc. It depends a lot on who attends.

Roché Compaan

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Mar 8, 2012, 5:44:22 AM3/8/12

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On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Izak Burger <isbu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/3/8 Roché Compaan <ro...@upfrontsystems.co.za>:
>> At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
>> days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
>> developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.
>
> This was probably discussed last night, which I missed because I sort
> of stopped looking at the calendar lately, but where are we going to
> find new developers? :-) I suppose what I'm asking is if there is
> demand and if a fair amount of advertising might be required.

Witek expressed a need for training. If he brings a long a buddy or
two, there is enough demand in my opinion.

Jan-Carel Brand

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Mar 8, 2012, 5:57:15 AM3/8/12

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On Thu, 2012-03-08 at 12:44 +0200, Roché Compaan wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Izak Burger <isbu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2012/3/8 Roché Compaan <ro...@upfrontsystems.co.za>:
> >> At last night's meeting, Witek suggested that we have open training
> >> days for new developers. If somebody organises a group of 3 or 4
> >> developers I'm happy to volunteer a day of my time every other month.
> >
> > This was probably discussed last night, which I missed because I sort
> > of stopped looking at the calendar lately, but where are we going to
> > find new developers? :-) I suppose what I'm asking is if there is
> > demand and if a fair amount of advertising might be required.
>
> Witek expressed a need for training. If he brings a long a buddy or
> two, there is enough demand in my opinion.

Roché, perhaps this is also the sign that you and I should go to the Uni
and have a Plone talk.

We can then advertise a training day to any students who might be
interested.

Roché Compaan

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Mar 8, 2012, 6:24:24 AM3/8/12

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Yes I would like to do this. Steve Kroon said he can help organise a
presentation to a group of students so let's contact him when you're
back in SA.

Witek

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Mar 9, 2012, 1:10:52 AM3/9/12

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I clearly need to get myself off the email digests and into /email updates as I'm always 1-2 days behind all the happenings with this group.... done.

Ok, so my idea spawned off from having attended the February Drupalcape meeting/training.

http://groups.drupal.org/node/211553

I liked how they had two tracks, beginner and advanced, keeping it interesting for the advanced users too.

The advanced training was great as the presenter, Roger Saner, inquired of our backgrounds and interests at the beginning, took short notes, then made great effort to make sure he touched on things the audience was interested in beside the listed topics of the training. The "beginners" I interacted with later were also happy from what I heard. Drupalcape group plans to do these trainings once every 3 months this year. It is also a 1st time for them but since the 1st one was a success, they plan to continue providing them.

So for Plone training:

Pick a date in the future..

Perhaps have some info talks inbetween to promo/introduce Plone and mention the training...

Send it to UCT lists and Stellenbosch lists.. send it to the Python list.. Siliconcape etc etc.

(and as we mentioned at the meeting, the target audience can easily go way beyond CS students.)

See who, if anyone, shows up..

Gather indication of interest by using something like Eventbrite to estimate numbers as the Drupalcape people did here:

http://drupalcapefebruarymeetup2012.eventbrite.com

If no one shows up, never do it again and focus on other activities in the future like sprints etc

I don't really have any friends who want to learn Plone that I know of off hand but who knows...

If there is a training coming up, I will mention it to anyone who I think could be remotely interested.

Witek

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Mar 9, 2012, 3:21:43 AM3/9/12

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Just some extra thoughts and perhaps not really much of an issue, since students are not necessarily the primary audience for such a training, but it might be good to keep the training date outside of exam times for the students (whenever that is) (June I guess??) Potentially outside of university holiday times also? (when a lot of students do vac work or go home to wherever) Just to increase the potential of more students attending?

Rijk Stofberg

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Apr 6, 2012, 2:31:13 AM4/6/12

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As promised, the list of add-on products currently installed at
whalecoastfm.co.za

Classifieds 1.5.5

Add classifieds to a Plone intranet or website.

Diazo theme support 1.0b9

Installs a control panel to allow on-the-fly theming with Diazo

Easy Slideshow 1.0

Easy Slideshow installation profile

EasyNewsletter 2.6

An easy to use Newsletter for Plone.

Plone Captchas 4.1

This product adds captcha support to Plone.

Plone DropDown Menu 1.2.5

DropDown Menu Product for Plone

Plone Survey 1.4.4

A survey product for Plone.

Plone4Artists Subtyper 1.2.0

Adds support for content types to have subtypes.

Quintagroup Captcha Core 0.3

This product adds captcha support to Plone.

Scrawl 2.0b1

Lightweight blogging for Plone.

Simple Social 1.6

Tools for connecting your Plone site with Facebook.

Solgema ContextualContentMenu 0.1

Adds a javascript Contextual Content Menu

Solgema Fullcalendar 2.0.1

Adds a Full editable Calendar based on fullcalendar
(http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/)

Static resource storage 1.0b5

A folder for storing and serving static resource files

TAL Portlet 1.0rc2

TAL portlet

cioppino.twothumbs 1.3

Installs the cioppino.twothumbs package

jQuery Color Picker 1.0b1

jQuery Color Picker integration for Plone

jQuery FullCalendar plugin 1.5.2.2

jQuery FullCalendar plugin for Plone (http://arshaw.com/fullcalendar/)

Witek

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Apr 6, 2012, 3:01:47 AM4/6/12

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Thanks Rijk!

Rijk Stofberg

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Apr 6, 2012, 3:20:25 AM4/6/12

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My pleasure. Sorry for posting on wrong previous message, but it did
remind me that we must organise a training day.
When will be best? Beginning of next month (May)?

Witek

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Apr 6, 2012, 6:06:51 AM4/6/12

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Good question.

So if we want to factor in the students.. I think early May is a possible good time. Their exams will kick start probably in early June.
I know that Stellenbosch engineering test week was last week.. Bsc CS students as I remember, typically had tests all over in the 2nd semester (so now and that's too many variables to take into account ).
I dont know the UCT time tables and ways.. alternatively the other option is to wait till July/August when the students are back from holidays.. fresh.. undistracted by pressures of tests etc.

(side note: I will take some personal time from mid May to almost end May as I have overseas visitors)

Perhaps a site like the whalefm one you did would be a good basis for a beginner training?
and then at the end of the training pointers to or a list of resources/technologies that the people could use to extend it in multiple ways depending on individual needs?
Just an idea..

Whatever training content/date we decide.. it be good to have time to plan/promote it properly.. which actually makes me wonder if early May is not too early?

Witek

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Apr 18, 2012, 4:09:29 AM4/18/12

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Updated list of add-on products that Rijk is using for whalecoastfm.co.za with extra information:
Included are the urls of the add-on products as well as their egg names. Posted here as a reference to anyone who may be interested in the future or in the now.

Classifieds 1.5.5
http://plone.org/products/classifieds
collective.classifieds

Add classifieds to a Plone intranet or website.

Diazo theme support 1.0b9

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/plone.app.theming
plone.app.theming

Installs a control panel to allow on-the-fly theming with Diazo

Easy Slideshow 1.0

http://plone.org/products/collective.easyslideshow
collective.easyslideshow

Easy Slideshow installation profile

EasyNewsletter 2.6

http://plone.org/products/easynewsletter
Products.EasyNewsletter

An easy to use Newsletter for Plone.

Plone Captchas 4.1

http://plone.org/products/plone-captchas/
quintagroup.plonecaptchas

This product adds captcha support to Plone.

Plone DropDown Menu 1.2.5

http://plone.org/products/quintagroup-dropdownmenu
quintagroup.dropdownmenu

DropDown Menu Product for Plone

Plone Survey 1.4.4

http://plone.org/products/plonesurvey
Products.PloneSurvey