[Koha-devel] KohaCon11 hackfest: discussion

Tue Mar 22 12:54:55 CET 2011

In my experience (which is limited compared to Paul's and MJ's), it is
difficult for me to get any serious hackery done at a hackfest.  The real
benefit for me comes from being in a room with some of the top minds in my
field, sharing ideas and plans, and re-igniting the already-roaring flame of
my interest in Koha.  I do feel guilty afterwards, when I have no new code
to show for my days at the hackfest, but that may be a mis-alignment of
expectations.

I like MJ's suggestion of splitting up the theory and the practice portions
of the hackfest, and running them in parallel.  I could see two (or more)
rooms working well; one for getting those new to the developer community
trained up and interested, and one for quietly coding up bugfixes and new
features.  The first room can serve as that place to share ideas and
interests, to coordinate efforts and draw up 'battle plans', while the
second can provide fewer distractions and more concentration for getting the
nitty-gritty work done, while still allowing access to some of the brilliant
minds of our community.

As for how long the hackfest should last, I agree there is a need to balance
the overall value of the experience with the expense.  The value comes from
not only the conference and hackfest, but from taking time to experience
India and enrich oneself culturally.  The expense is not only the cost of
travel, but the cost to our libraries, companies and other institutions of
having one of their developers otherwise engaged.  So, distilling all those
obvious statements down, I think 3-4 days is sufficient, with a couple
personal days for travel.

Cheers,

-Ian

On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:27 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:

> Paul Poulain wrote:
> > I proposed during the first IRC meeting to split the hackfest in 2
> > sub-parts, each of them dealing with one goal:
> > * Hackfest part 1 = "become a Koha developper"
> > * Hackfest part 2 = "do some hacking".
> > We could say part1 is about theory, and part2 is about practising what
> > we've learned on part1 ;-) (and of course, ppl coming for part1
> > would/should/could stay for part2 !)
>
> I think splitting it would be helpful, especially if the two parts
> could take place in parallel somehow.
>
> [...]
> > How long could/should it last ? There are 2 opinions here:
> > - staying & taking time is expensive, so not too long
> > - once you're here, we must make the trip worth, so as long as possible
> > What's your opinion on this matter ? Mine is that once we're here, we
> > must stay as long as possible, those meetings are precious.
>
> Wow, way to misrepresent the other opinion! :-( I feel most people
> agree that once we're there, we must make the trip worthwhile, so
> spend as long as *reasonable*.
>
> The difference in opinion is really: what is reasonable?
>
> It's *possible* for an Englishman to spend something like 6 months in
> India, so that's "as long as possible" - would anyone argue for a 6
> month KohaCon and hackfest?  I think kmkale would get bored with us!
>
> Every extra day is extra cost for the Koha libraries which fund that
> developer and it's probably even more costly than our usual community
> participation.  I'm pretty sure that several developers were working
> silly hours while in NZ so that they could continue to support their
> libraries without reducing their participation - that's unhealthy and
> not to be encouraged IMO; while some were being a burden on colleagues
> who did/ could not attend because someone was left at home to "watch
> the shop".
>
> As many of us are painfully aware, there are some Koha support
> companies which are not participating in these events at all.  How do
> we avoid handing them an advantage?
>
> In the surveys I've seen and done, most libraries don't care whether
> or not suppliers take part in hackfests.  I wish it wasn't so, but
> that's how it seems to be.  (Anyone got evidence to contradict it?)
>
> A basic question is: what is in the hackfest for developers?
> My biggest limitation is spare time to hack and having a hackspace
> full of people talking all day doesn't increase that time at all.
> I feel guilty if I'm in the room but ignoring someone giving a talk!
>
> So, change 1: ditch most of the talks, or move them out of the main
> hackspace, or only have a short one at the start of each session.
>
> Change 2: pick themes for at least some sessions.  There were a few
> good possibilities for KohaCon10 hackfest (persistance, template
> toolkit and 3.6 features would have been my favourites) but I didn't
> really get time to hack on any of those.  It felt like someone stood
> up with a new theme as soon as one person sat down.  Maybe it got less
> hectic in later days, but that goes back to my earlier points: I feel
> guilty if I don't watch talks and extra days are expensive.  (And in
> my case in NZ, impossible - because of other constraints, I couldn't
> take extra days then and I *really* wanted to see Marlborough.  I
> didn't even get to see some stuff in Wellington I wanted to. :-/ )
>
> Thirdly, Change 3: I'd label some of the veteran devs "roamers" for
> each session and introduce them at the start.  Roamers would go from
> desk to desk, offering helps and seeing what's being hacked, to
> summarise in a lightning talk at the close.  Then those developers are
> not expecting to hack in that session and there's people who new
> hackers know they can interrupt without disrupting.
>
> I'll stop here for now (having just lost more hacking time) but let
> me know if anyone likes those change suggestions.
>
> Hope that helps,
> --
> MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
> http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician.
> In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
> Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
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-- 
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal
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