Hackathon
Matthew Turland
new this year: an unconference! Keith Casey has been appointed as its
chairman and he's suggested an interesting and rather adventurous
addition to the uncon -- and was crazy enough to put me in charge of
it.
The proposal is for a Hackathon; think of it as TestFest (http://
qa.php.net/testfest.php) meets Bug Hunt Day (http://
www.bughuntday.org). The goal of this event is to get developers of a
few well-known PHP projects together with other PHP developers and
contribute to those projects by triaging and fixing bugs, writing
tests, and ultimately having a great time.
Projects included will depend on interest and presence of project
developers at the conference. Space is limited and reserved to a three-
hour time slot. Logistics of food, beverages, etc. are still being
worked out. For the moment, we'd like to get an idea of who is
attending |tek and would like to participate.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Post 'em here!
weierophinney
Stefan Koopmanschap
On Jan 8, 3:44 am, Matthew Turland <tobias...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you hadn't already heard, php|tek will come with a little something
> new this year: an unconference! Keith Casey has been appointed as its
> chairman and he's suggested an interesting and rather adventurous
> addition to the uncon -- and was crazy enough to put me in charge of
> it.
>
> The proposal is for a Hackathon; think of it as TestFest (http://
Eli
Marco Tabini
Mt.
Keith Casey
> Great! How can I help to publicize it?
Posting it on the site as a *proposal* would be a good starting point.
We're still working to gather a list of projects and then will
attempt to filter them based on feedback and interest.
keith
--
D. Keith Casey Jr.
CEO, CaseySoftware, LLC
http://CaseySoftware.com
Marco Tabini
On 8-Jan-09, at 10:15 AM, Keith Casey wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Marco Tabini <mar...@tabini.ca> wrote:
>> Great! How can I help to publicize it?
>
> Posting it on the site as a *proposal* would be a good starting point.
> We're still working to gather a list of projects and then will
> attempt to filter them based on feedback and interest.
Mt.
Eli
>> Great! How can I help to publicize it?
Making sure it's mention online, as well as in the print at the event
would be a great start :)
Providing a comfy room, with lots of power, and either tables or lounge
seats, ++
Providing drinks (both caffeine & alcoholic) as well as snacks (Subway
Super-Sub anyone -- Well, whatever the venue would allow) to fuel the
hacking, would be amazing and a huge draw.
Keith wrote:
> We're still working to gather a list of projects and then will
> attempt to filter them based on feedback and interest.
Keith, while having a list of: "We know people from the following
projects will be there hacking" would be good, but I'd hate to see a
specific list of "Here are the projects you are allowed to work on"
Wouldn't it be better to leave it organic? "Come hang out here from
6pm-9pm to hack on your favorite PHP open source project and have a few
brews. People from Wordpress, Phergie, PHP core itself, and others are
planning to attend, feel free to pull up a chair and ask if you can
help, or just to sit down and start churning out code for your own favorite"
(Oooh, could be sorta nice to provide 'signs' and markers, so that
people at various tables could write what project they are working on,
so that others could know, see, and sit down if they wanted)
Just off the wall thoughts.
Eli
Matthew Turland
> seats, ++
>
> Providing drinks (both caffeine & alcoholic) as well as snacks (Subway
> Super-Sub anyone -- Well, whatever the venue would allow) to fuel the
> hacking, would be amazing and a huge draw.
> Wouldn't it be better to leave it organic? "Come hang out here from
> 6pm-9pm to hack on your favorite PHP open source project and have a few
> brews. People from Wordpress, Phergie, PHP core itself, and others are
> planning to attend, feel free to pull up a chair and ask if you can
> help, or just to sit down and start churning out code for your own favorite"
and have people participate in projects they're interested in, we also
want to encourage them to try to help with projects for which they may
not have provided help before. Ideally, it would also have a
substantial effect on each project involved: do we want one bug fixed
or one test written for a lot of projects, or a lot of bugs fixed /
tests written for a few? Not saying it's a bad idea, just playing
Devil's Advocate.
> (Oooh, could be sorta nice to provide 'signs' and markers, so that
> people at various tables could write what project they are working on,
> so that others could know, see, and sit down if they wanted)
wouldn't go so far as to limit what projects people can work on, but
in terms of promoting particular projects in ways like having signs as
you described, limiting the projects for which we provide that type of
support may be a good thing.
Good ideas, though, keep them coming. :)
Eli
> substantial effect on each project involved: do we want one bug fixed
> or one test written for a lot of projects, or a lot of bugs fixed /
> tests written for a few? Not saying it's a bad idea, just playing
> Devil's Advocate.
Sure thing ... but just pointing out that saying: "These are the
projects we've picked to work on" ... may encourage people who aren't
active in those specific projects already, to go out for a night on the
town instead.
If it's an open invitation, with a nod towards some projects that people
know will be worked on, then random people will be more inclined to show
up, and might get sucked into helping with the other projects.
Focusing it too much will just make people walk away, IMO.
>> (Oooh, could be sorta nice to provide 'signs' and markers, so that
>> people at various tables could write what project they are working on,
>> so that others could know, see, and sit down if they wanted)
>
> Another reason to try to promote a few, to give the event focus. I
> wouldn't go so far as to limit what projects people can work on, but
> in terms of promoting particular projects in ways like having signs as
> you described, limiting the projects for which we provide that type of
> support may be a good thing.
Right ... and hence my original post. Saying: "Hey, everyone come by
to hack on whatever code you want, we know that people from projects
X/Y/Z will be here, so help them out or hack on your own stuff, We has
Beer & Sub!"
That's a nice open invitation. And still gives a feeling of 'look who
will be there', versus that being a focus.
Again, just my 2c
Eli
Matthew Turland
> to hack on whatever code you want, we know that people from projects
> X/Y/Z will be here, so help them out or hack on your own stuff, We has
> Beer & Sub!"
Keith Casey
That makes quite a bit of sense. I don't think the intent is to limit
people, more to focus on a few projects and then have some open ground
for other things. I guess it depends on where Matthew - Senior
HackMaster? - drives it. He's point on this part, I'm supporting him.
;)
kc
Matthew Turland
> That makes quite a bit of sense. I don't think the intent is to limit
> people, more to focus on a few projects and then have some open ground
> for other things. I guess it depends on where Matthew - Senior
> HackMaster? - drives it. He's point on this part, I'm supporting him.
> ;)
> kc
this group on which we can list projects and people representing them.
You can find that here: http://groups.google.com/group/tek09/web/hackathon-projects.
If you know you'll be at |tek and would like to represent a particular
project, please add your name and project to the list that I've
started. Thanks!
Mike Willbanks
definitely will submit it.... You never know with all of the time
constraints these days!