Introductions

[Matthew Fernandez]

So I attempted to put a code of conduct in our group's description
only to have the thing barf on save because my description was longer
than 300 characters (not sure why the text box wasn't limited to that
in the first place). I've included the draft code of conduct at the
bottom as an introduction/reminder of some rules. I don't think any of
them should be controversial, but if you have issues let me know.

As it's the start of the month, I wanted to pick on our new members
and ask them to introduce themselves. So Dave S, Andrew and Yas, can I
get you guys to tell us your name, something you'd like to get out of
this group and something (not necessarily IT-related) that you are
passionate about? As an example, I'm Matthew, I'm interested in
learning C# sometime in the near future and I like cats (stray or
owner-encumbered; I'm not fussy). As a reminder to all, anyone is free
to join and I encourage you to bring friends along.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything lately? If you're looking for
a low-effort way to get involved, how about testing wikiblog
(http://wikiblog.jugglethis.net/)? Post stuff, edit stuff, comment and
generally try and break it. Although please don't delete posts as I
don't think we have a backup of the content (Tom, can we set this up?
Would be annoying to lose the task list).

One final thing is an idea I wanted to float. I frequently get pinged
by employers/recruiters/colleagues asking if I know someone with
certain skills looking for a job. The purpose of this group is clearly
not to find people jobs, but I understand there are members currently
looking for work. How would people feel about permitting members to
send round job offers/info? Every message would need a "[job]" prefix
in the subject so those of you uninterested could easily filter them
to trash. I have no strong feeling either way, but I'm sure this will
spark heated debate so let's hear it. Given that IT, like other
fields, is becoming more about who you know than what you know,
getting a foot in the door through a friend on this list is much more
advantageous than cold calling a recruiter.

That's all for now. Happy hacking!
Matt

Code of Conduct:
You can expect to get warned once or twice and then banned for
breaking these rules.

General netiquette:
- No profanity or offensive language.
- No discrimination on any grounds. Unlike the other rules, you are
likely to get banned immediately for breaking this one.
- Try to avoid using acronyms and domain-specific terms. Experience
and area-of-expertise varies wildly across the group and you cannot
expect everyone to understand what a given TLA is.
- Be useful when giving feedback. Don't say "this idea is bad." Say
"this idea is bad for these reasons..." If possible suggest
alternatives.
- It's OK to admit you don't know something. We're all amateurs on
some scale and here to learn. Unlike some other forums, you won't get
flamed for admitting you don't know the answer.
- When mailing the group, prefix your subject line with a tag if it
applies to something specific. E.g. [project-name] for something
related to an ongoing project, [RFC] request for comment when you want
feedback on a proposal, [off topic] for something not related to the
group but that members might be interested in.
- Don't email group members privately about group projects/issues.
If you're communicating about something group-related it should go
through this list so all members have a chance to contribute.
- Don't get upset if someone doesn't reply to your email in a given
amount of time. This is not anyone's full time job and you can't
expect everyone to monitor this list everyday.

Project guidelines:
- Any group member can propose a project/idea.
- When proposing an idea you should include a reasonably detailed
description, some use cases and, if possible, references to existing
related work.
- All projects must be covered by a licence that allows free
distribution of binaries and source code. Such licences include GPL,
BSD, CDDL and some CC variations. If in doubt ask the group.
- All development must take place in a public repository, viewable
to non-members. E.g. Github, Gitorius, Bitbucket, etc.
- Do not propose a project and expect others to do all the work. As
a project proposer, you will be expected to put in a reasonable amount
of work and provide some creative/architectural direction.
- Don't commit code you don't own. There are some exceptions to this
(code in the public domain, GPLed, etc.), but for the most part this
is a hard and fast rule. In particular, do not commit code that the
company you work for may have an intellectual property claim over.

[Billy Huang]

Jesus mate. How long it take you to come up with these rules lol

Sent from my Windows Phone From: Matthew Fernandez
Sent: Saturday, 2 July 2011 10:28
To: code-p...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Introductions

[Matthew Fernandez]

~2mins. I type fast ;)

[Matthew Fernandez]

On 2 July 2011 10:28, Matthew Fernandez <matthew....@gmail.com> wrote:
> As it's the start of the month, I wanted to pick on our new members
> and ask them to introduce themselves. So Dave S, Andrew and Yas, can I
> get you guys to tell us your name, something you'd like to get out of
> this group and something (not necessarily IT-related) that you are
> passionate about?

Nobody feeling particularly introductory? I'll give you guys til the
middle of the week and then introduce you myself (which will
undoubtedly be a highly inaccurate summary of your character).

Also wanted to quickly plug something off topic. The National Computer
Science School run a challenge every year aimed at teaching high
school students competitive programming. If you know any school
students who would be interested, please refer them to
http://www.ncss.edu.au/challenge/index.html.

[Andrew Hill]

Oh yeah, forgot about that...

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Matthew Fernandez <matthew....@gmail.com> wrote:

tell us your name

Frog 

something you'd like to get out of this group

Brownies. Other chocolate-based baked goods would be okay, but I think brownies is currently what I'd really like.

 

and something (not necessarily IT-related) that you are passionate about?

good, well designed, non-frustrating UIs

[Billy Huang]

So we got another designer like me who likes sexy UI

Handshake

Sent from my Windows Phone

---

From: Andrew Hill
Sent: Monday, 11 July 2011 13:37
To: code-p...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Introductions

[Andrew Hill]

oh, i'm no designer; I can't make UIs for shit.

I'm just a bit picky about the UIs I'm required to use :P

my actual programming skills are more in the C/C++, low level real-time stuff, occasionally drivers and the like but mostly real-time robotic systems control... and whinging to the resident GUI bitch.

[Matthew Fernandez]

Thanks, Frog, although I'm not sure how many brownies you'll get out
of this group.

As for the others, Dave is into games programming and looking to pick
up some more skills in this area. He enjoys watching terrible movies
and inflicting these upon others. Yas works in hardware design and
development and hopes to get his software fix from this group. For
some baffling reason he enjoys things like cricket and rugby. Now,
Dave/Yas, how inaccurate were my summaries?

We'll do another round of introductions next month for those new in July.

[Matthew Fernandez]

On 14 July 2011 12:18, Matthew Fernandez <matthew....@gmail.com> wrote:
> We'll do another round of introductions next month for those new in July.

And you thought that was just an idle threat... We only picked up one
new member this month, so Angus, I don't mean to single you out, but
would you mind giving us a bit of a spiel about who you are and what's
brought you to this group?

[Angus Gratton]

Oops, sorry it's taken me 9 days to notice this email and respond. :)

I'm here because Matt invited me to join and it sounded plenty
interesting. Matt & I haven't met in person but we met online a while
back, via Julian, after I publicly called out Telstra for GPL violation
in their T-Hub product.

I'm a software developer by trade, have worked in a few different areas.
At the moment I'm rebuilding the control system for the Heavy Ion
Accelerator at the ANU Nuclear Physics Department.

My favourite programming languages are probably Python and Erlang but
I've done a lot of programming in C & C++, as well as a smattering of
other languages.

I'm the Secretary of the Canberra Hackerspace, Make Hack Void, which I
cofounded.

Between various jobs, ongoing projects, the Hackerspace, and my bad
habit of volunteering to do things (like running a "build your own MIDI
controller" workshop at Electrofringe in Newcastle in 6 weeks), I have
very little spare time for coding at the moment. :/

Bad luck for me, because a lot of what you all are doing sounds
interesting. I've been wanting to learn some modern web programming for
a few years now, I don't have much web programming experience (except
for an ASP.NET project 5 years ago... eck!)

Anyway, if it's cool I'll probably lurk and I might occasionally chip
in, and hopefully get involved on some magical day in the future when
I've finished some of my current commitments.

:)

- Angus

PS I know you didn't ask for criticism, but one thing I've found coming
in blind is it's taken me a while to work out what everything is and
what people are vaguely working on. Maybe that's (a) intentional cos
you're keeping ideas hush-hush or (b) irrelevant because you all know
each other, but I thought I'd mention it.

Some links to code repos or something might be good to have somewhere if
you want to attract newbies in, although now Google Groups is
feature-crippled I don't know exactly how you'd do that.

[Matthew Fernandez]

Thanks, Angus! My further comments below.

On 10 August 2011 09:12, Angus Gratton <g...@projectgus.com> wrote:
> PS I know you didn't ask for criticism, but one thing I've found coming
> in blind is it's taken me a while to work out what everything is and
> what people are vaguely working on. Maybe that's (a) intentional cos
> you're keeping ideas hush-hush or (b) irrelevant because you all know
> each other, but I thought I'd mention it.

It's not just you; this seems to be a common issue at the moment. I'm
not in favour of keeping anything secret (except that Ruby security
token...) and I assume others agree with me as one of the requirements
for this group is that all development be done in a publicly
accessible repository. It may seem like we all know each other, but
actually we don't. I've spoken with everyone on the list and met most
face-to-face, but some I've only interacted with over email. Others on
this list may have never met in any way, but one of the things I was
hoping people get from this group is networking and new personal and
working relationships.

> Some links to code repos or something might be good to have somewhere if
> you want to attract newbies in, although now Google Groups is
> feature-crippled I don't know exactly how you'd do that.

I agree. It's becoming painfully obvious that we all need this. Google
Groups is indeed letting me down in a few areas. Can I ask for a
general show of hands (or opinions) of what people would like to do at
this point? As I see it there are a few options:
1. A Github organisation (pros: information can live with the project
repos, wiki/issues/etc. built in, no new logins for us, cons:
inflexibility)
2. Some other hosted collaborative tool, e.g. confluence (pros:
greater feature set, more flexibility, cons: new logins, reliance on
third-party service)
3. Host our own collaborative portal (pros: ultimate flexibility,
cons: cost, time, effort)
I'm leaning towards github, but I'm happy to be swayed in any
direction by the right argument.

[Julian G]

I +1 Github. I haven't tried it, but I feel like the other options are a bit overkill.

[Tom Allen]

++Github. I still think it's the easiest/quickest option. Just stick a link to the organisation page in the introductory email/blurb for the mailing list and new members should see it and get the hint.

[Matthew Fernandez]

OK, I've created an organisation at
https://github.com/organizations/CodeProBono and made everyone who's
github username I know owners. Tom and Billy, if you guys can transfer
ownership of wikiblog and drifting-bottle to the organisation (in the
admin section of each repo) we should have everything centralised.
Tom, github's instructions imply that transferring ownership of a
forked repo might not be straightforward, so let me know if there are
problems.

Obviously anyone with checked out copies of the repos will need to
change their remote pointers. I think it's something like git remote
set-url origin ...

[Billy Huang]

How to transfer the ownership, don't see it in admin options

[Billy Huang]

don't worry, just figured it out, its done

On 13/08/2011, at 12:16 PM, Matthew Fernandez wrote:

[Tom Allen]

Done.