Euro/London Presence (was: Re: [Puppet-dev] Re: The Future of Puppet [Was: Deprecation logs])

[Nigel Kersten]

For those who don't know, I'm responsible for the Community team now at Puppet, and can answer some of this.

 

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 10:54 AM, Dean Wilson <dean....@gmail.com> wrote:

Next up European/London presence: Where is PuppetConf Europe?

This is absolutely something we've talked about and would love to do, but we have no concrete plans at this point. 

Putting on events as big as PuppetConf is expensive in terms of time and money, and we don't want to do a half-arsed job.

We do 5-7 full-day Puppet Camps in Europe each year, plus the contributor summit and config management camp, and we'd all love to add a PuppetConf EU to that list.

I can't give you any promises around that though.

 

Why are
the London Puppet User group meetings held in such a small space?

I'll chase this up and work out what's going on.

 

Can
the next London Puppetcamp have an advanced track and speakers who
don't already have their slides for that talk on slideshare? These are
all exposure issues and without them the start of the community / user
pipeline doesn't stay filled.

I'd rather not shame people publicly, but I'd love to get off-list feedback about any talks at the last PuppetCamp London that you'd seen before and felt like stale content.

Love to have you submit a talk to PuppetCamp London btw Dean :) http://goo.gl/forms/LShW12fDyO

Advanced topics at camps is complicated. We have a lot of beginner users (regularly about 50% of Camp attendees), so we focus on beginner/intermediate level talks. It's a difficult balance, especially for the more experienced users.

Contributor Summit (after CfgMgmtCamp) is a better spot for the more advanced talks.

I'd also be remiss not to point out we've got way more scope to have advanced talks at PuppetConf in the US and the CFP is open..... http://2016.puppetconf.com/cfp-registration/ 

[Trevor Vaughan]

Hi Nigel,

This is a tangent, but I would also like to see more advanced content at the Puppet Camps.

Would anyone be open to a dual tracked Puppet Camp?

Beginner/Intermediate + Business and Advanced + Hackathon?

Trevor

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[Nigel Kersten]

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 5:07 PM, Trevor Vaughan <tvau...@onyxpoint.com> wrote:

Hi Nigel,

This is a tangent, but I would also like to see more advanced content at the Puppet Camps.

Would anyone be open to a dual tracked Puppet Camp?

Beginner/Intermediate + Business and Advanced + Hackathon?

Trevor

It's something we've definitely considered, but is difficult to justify given the small number of folks who register as "Advanced" at Camps (and yes, I recognize this can be self-fulfilling if we only have beginner/intermediate content). 

We lose a lot of the network effects by moving away from one track, and splitting the content like this means we need to send more staff, which means we can't afford to do as many PuppetCamps. I'm not a huge fan of half-arsed hackathons either :)

We're not ignoring the problem, but our focus for more advanced topics has been the Contributor Summits we run in the US and EU, as well as PUGs (depending upon the attendee mix in a given region).

[Rob Nelson]

I'd also be remiss not to point out we've got way more scope to have advanced talks at PuppetConf in the US and the CFP is open..... http://2016.puppetconf.com/cfp-registration/ 

Speaking to the advanced realm, is there any possibility of slots longer than 45 minutes? Even an extra 10 minutes could make a huge difference. Or maybe some workshops, even if small in size? 

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Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

[Thomas Gelf]

Am 13.04.2016 um 02:15 schrieb Nigel Kersten:
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 5:07 PM, Trevor Vaughan <tvau...@onyxpoint.com
> <mailto:tvau...@onyxpoint.com>> wrote:
> This is a tangent, but I would also like to see more advanced
> content at the Puppet Camps.
>
> Would anyone be open to a dual tracked Puppet Camp?
>
> Beginner/Intermediate + Business and Advanced + Hackathon?
>

> It's something we've definitely considered, but is difficult to justify
> given the small number of folks who register as "Advanced" at Camps (and
> yes, I recognize this can be self-fulfilling if we only have
> beginner/intermediate content).

This. You're right, it's hard. Camps are very often simply not large
enough to justify multiple tracks, and if there are not enough people
you completely ruin the atmosphere.

Another proposal, what about trying to start running a very few Camps as
"Advanced Camps"? Explicitly promoted being such. Just as an experiment
to get a feeling of whether and how they would work? If they do, add
more. In case they don't, fade them out. They should then structured in
a way really satisfying advanced users.

> We lose a lot of the network effects by moving away from one track, and
> splitting the content like this means we need to send more staff, which
> means we can't afford to do as many PuppetCamps. I'm not a huge fan of
> half-arsed hackathons either :)

Hackathons work very well if there are enough people willing to hack
something together. But of course they can be a pretty sad thing if you
have just 7 people in a room, with 4 of them being busy reading latest
news on Facebook ;)

A few month ago we tried to run one after a small conference, related to
different monitoring tools. It was a huge success. We prepared a few
suggestions for topics to work on, people where allowed to propose their
own owns, together we selected five of them, and people chose where to
attend. Some tables autonomously divided themselves into sub-groups,
some people moved around. It was a lot of fun.

Works only with skilled people willing to create something. If you want
to do something similar at an entry level camp it needs more guidance I
guess. You could try to run it more like a hands-on training class.

Prepare some specific scenarios and let every group (or even the only
one) build puppet modules for one of them. Because this is what many
people are looking for: guidance when it goes to solve real-world
problems with Puppet. On mailing lists they often ask just for a
specific problem, get their answer and the hint to rethink their whole
module structure. Even if that's mostly right, it rarely helps them.

It would require an additional day, but that would be a good idea
anyways. Charge that additional day extra, so you know how many
attendees you're going to have. Cancel it if there are not enough.
Still, people travel far for a single-day event. If a Camp is attached
to another conference it usually works fine, running a standalone
single-day camp is challenging. That's one more argument for an optional
extra day, but it would require even more organizational work. Having a
location with affordable rooms for example becomes important. A social
event in the evening, and so on.

> We're not ignoring the problem, but our focus for more advanced topics
> has been the Contributor Summits we run in the US and EU, as well as
> PUGs (depending upon the attendee mix in a given region).

Puppet used to have local partners that helped running camps, right now
they are large enough to do so by themselves. I understand the cost
problem you mentioned, especially when flying from camp to camp. Some
international flight hubs (like London) make good locations for IT
events, Frankfurt instead in my believes isn't known to be a "hip" IT
city with a vibrant community. But no doubt you'll reach a lot of banks
of course ;)

Best,
Thomas

[Trevor Vaughan]

Hmm, fair enough.

I think for the Advanced materials, you would want to have an up-front review and possibly have it run by a local representative (PUG owners?). That way, you can focus on the usual event and let the splinter run semi-independently.

I've just been looking at some of the recent threads and seeing the comments on Ansible vs. Puppet vs. Whatever and I realized a while back that shipping out self-contained `puppet apply` bundles via `transport mechanism X` would create a much easier to understand and use one-time build environments. I thought that something like this might be good as a hackathon target since it should be able to be done in a day with reasonable testing.

Anyway, glad to see the discussion happening and I'm particularly interested since PuppetCamp DC is coming up soon ;-).

Thanks,

Trevor

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[Tim Meusel]

Am Mittwoch, 13. April 2016 02:15:57 UTC+2 schrieb Rob Nelson:

I'd also be remiss not to point out we've got way more scope to have advanced talks at PuppetConf in the US and the CFP is open..... http://2016.puppetconf.com/cfp-registration/ 

Speaking to the advanced realm, is there any possibility of slots longer than 45 minutes? Even an extra 10 minutes could make a huge difference. Or maybe some workshops, even if small in size? 

That would be really cool. Most other conferences here handle it like this: 45 or 60min talk -> 15min Q&A -> 15min break to change room (if there are several parallel tracks). The speaker can decide if he wants the QA or take that time as an extra 15min for the talk.  45min slots are really short if you've a complex topic that needs a longer introduction :(

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Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

[Nigel Kersten]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 6:49 AM, 'Tim Meusel' via Puppet Developers <puppe...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

That would be really cool. Most other conferences here handle it like this: 45 or 60min talk -> 15min Q&A -> 15min break to change room (if there are several parallel tracks). The speaker can decide if he wants the QA or take that time as an extra 15min for the talk.  45min slots are really short if you've a complex topic that needs a longer introduction :(

I'm not entirely convinced this conversation belongs on this list, but I also don't have another public forum that makes sense to talk about it.

If you're genuinely presenting an advanced topic on Puppet *at* PuppetConf, you don't need the same level of intro materials as you do at a more general conference, and I'd be really surprised if 45 min (plus being able to eat into your QA time) isn't sufficient. 

It's hugely confusing at larger conferences to have multiple different time-slots for talks, and makes timetabling and responding to last minute changes super difficult.

I'm happy to chat to anyone off-list about their specific submissions and ways to build an informative yet tight talk of any level in the given time slots. 

[Nigel Kersten]

Top-posting as I'm responding to the higher level point rather than the details.

Thomas, it does feel like you're describing a mix between our Contributor Summit and #puppethack events.

I believe it makes more sense to double down on the more advanced/hacking topics at a large virtual event like #puppethack that lets more people participate than it does to force these through to a single geographic region, or to piggyback them onto PuppetCamps, which have a different focus.

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[Thomas Gelf]

Am 13.04.2016 um 16:15 schrieb Nigel Kersten:
> Thomas, it does feel like you're describing a mix between our
> Contributor Summit and #puppethack events.

Not really, I guess I didn't cleanly distinct my thoughts. It should
read: "Hackathons will not work at entry-level-camps, but you could run
something like a show-me-how-to-write-my-modules kickstart class". An
extra day that could be booked (and payed) separately.

[Gareth Rushgrove]

On 13 April 2016 at 14:49, 'Tim Meusel' via Puppet Developers

<puppe...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
> Am Mittwoch, 13. April 2016 02:15:57 UTC+2 schrieb Rob Nelson:
>>
>>
>>> I'd also be remiss not to point out we've got way more scope to have
>>> advanced talks at PuppetConf in the US and the CFP is open.....
>>> http://2016.puppetconf.com/cfp-registration/
>>
>>
>> Speaking to the advanced realm, is there any possibility of slots longer
>> than 45 minutes? Even an extra 10 minutes could make a huge difference. Or
>> maybe some workshops, even if small in size?
>>
>>
>

As a (some would say too) regular speaker, I would say there is a big
difference in the amount of work required putting together a 40 minute
talk vs an hour talk. This really raises the barrier to entry for
first time or inexperienced speakers in my experience. And Puppet Camp
(I hope) does a reasonable job of encouraging people new to speaking.

I've also rarely seen a 60 minute talk that wouldn't have been
improved by being shorter. That's definitely personal opinion (albeit
from too many events) and as a native english speaker. Longer
workshops are also really hard to do well too.

Personally, I'd also like to see more advanced content. But since
joining Puppet Labs I've not seen that many advanced submissions to
the Puppet Camps I've helped out with. Although I appreciate that's a
chicken and egg situation to a certain extend. Do people not submit?
Or what particular topics would you like to see in the bracket?

Gareth

> That would be really cool. Most other conferences here handle it like this:
> 45 or 60min talk -> 15min Q&A -> 15min break to change room (if there are
> several parallel tracks). The speaker can decide if he wants the QA or take
> that time as an extra 15min for the talk. 45min slots are really short if
> you've a complex topic that needs a longer introduction :(
>
>> --
>>
>> Rob Nelson
>> rnel...@gmail.com
>>

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[Rob Nelson]

More of a workshop, than a hackathon?

Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

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[Gareth Rushgrove]

The two contributor summits really vary in size and style.

I've definitely helped with thinks that sounds like this at the US
contributor summit. A few of us ran a bootcamp for getting started
with module testing the year before last during the contributor
summit. We have lots (lets say 30ish) people installing the tools and
getting started writing their first test.

Worth nothing though that that format tends to be good for things you
don't already know. It was hard to mix that with more advanced
conversations. The conversations about testing at the EU contributor
summit for instance have tended to be much more indepth though, mainly
down to a much smaller audience.

Gareth

>
>
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[Thomas Gelf]

Am 13.04.2016 um 17:05 schrieb Rob Nelson:
> More of a workshop, than a hackathon?

Yes. Kind of a "Getting started hands on workshop". How often have you
been asked how to write a module "the right way"? You could use a lot of
words explaining many things, or just sit down together and build a
concrete example.

I stopped training official Puppet classes something like three years
ago, but I have always been (and still am) asked whether there is
available something like a "Best practices training". There is no such,
so I usually suggested doing in-house workshops building something they
need together.

Regards,
Thomas

[Thomas Gelf]

Am 13.04.2016 um 19:04 schrieb Thomas Gelf:
> [...] but I have always been (and still am) asked whether there is

> available something like a "Best practices training".

NB: It didn't matter what kind of Puppet class this was. Something like
a "Best practices training" was requested by all kind of attendees, from
Fundamentals, Practitioner and Architect up to "Extending Puppet using
Ruby". Feedback I of course forwarded to different Puppet(labs) training
people at various occasions.

Last time was at last years PuppetConf, had a very nice discussion, do
not remember with whom. There I have been told that this could be part
of the upcoming virtual classroom trainings. I realized right a couple
of minutes ago that there is being offered "Appropriate Module Design"
right now. That's great to see! From the description I cannot tell how
deep it goes, but yes, that (and more like this) is what people request
and need. Cool!

I guess I mentioned this before, I stopped doing trainings when
"Extending" was discontinued. Also something that could IMO be worth to
re-evaluate. Even if we were not able to sell it many times, it was
always appreciated. It was a challenging training, for the attendees and
for the trainer. Especially when you allowed them to use their own
notebooks and VMs. Newer rspec or puppet versions, different Ruby
versions, stumbled over hidden monkey patching issues and much more :D

But still, it always was a lot of fun. However, it would be challenging
to this in a virtual classroom I guess.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Rob Nelson]

A workshop on building tests (or even two - one for module code, one for types/providers/functions/etc) would also be valuable.

Rob Nelson
rnel...@gmail.com

Thomas

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[Ryan Whitehurst]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Thomas Gelf <tho...@gelf.net> wrote:
> Last time was at last years PuppetConf, had a very nice discussion, do
> not remember with whom. There I have been told that this could be part
> of the upcoming virtual classroom trainings. I realized right a couple
> of minutes ago that there is being offered "Appropriate Module Design"
> right now. That's great to see! From the description I cannot tell how
> deep it goes, but yes, that (and more like this) is what people request
> and need. Cool!

I took the course as an internal reviewer before it went out. I
personally thought it did a good job of covering covering the common
module patterns and structures and how to organize modules for
maintainability, along with a brief discussion of the role of testing
(much past that is out-of-scope).

"Infrastructure Design Using Puppet Modules" is also a good
"best-practices" course. The major topic in the course is the
roles/profiles pattern. It covers how to structure your internal code
fairly well and IMO is a great introduction to "architecting" puppet
code. I'd highly recommend it to anyone building out puppet code from
scratch or looking to refactor their entire code stack.

http://learn.puppet.com/instructor-led-training/appropriate-module-design
http://learn.puppet.com/instructor-led-training/infrastructure-design-using-puppet-modules

[Trevor Vaughan]

Heh,

I will admit that I submitted an advanced topic at my first PuppetCamp and the result was that I lost 95% of the audience, 2 people actively went to sleep, and 6 folks in the back were absolutely thrilled that I had presented the content.

So...yeah, I'm not sure what the right answer is.

1) We *want* people to understand that you can do advanced things in Puppet and how

2) We don't want to alienate/bore 80% of the audience

3) We want people to get excited

I still think that a dual room/track type of event would be best but, obviously, the cost goes up.

Would it be possible to do something where all beginner topics are at the beginning and the advanced topics are at the end of a PuppetCamp?

If that was explicitly announced, there could be a second level registration for people that want to show up for only the advanced materials and the beginners can bail.

Not sure if it would work but I think it might draw more people.

Thanks,

Trevor

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