We are currently in the process of organising the pre Umbraco UK Festival hackathon during which we are looking to tackle as many bugs as possible from the Umbraco issue tracker in a single day.
After having a brief discussion with Søren Spelling Lund of uCommerce, we thought it would be a good idea to start the ball rolling on making this a more regular event.
It would be a great way of fixing bugs and helping make Umbraco more stable, but more importantly it would help introduce more developers to the Umbraco project showing them how it is structured and how best to contribute back to the core.
This would help to keep Umbraco fresh, and would significantly help the HQ move the project on. The community could concentrate on minor, easy to fix bugs and issues, leaving the HQ to concentrate on more advanced features and new functionality.
Anyway, I just thought I'd throw the idea out there and see what everyone thought. I'd be happy to help control organising the days, and we at The Cogworks would be happy to host events both in London and Manchester in the UK, and maybe some other areas/coutries if there was enough interest.
I'm thinking maybe one day every other month in the UK, alternating between the North and South? But I'm open to suggestions...
Our umBristol user-group have started to organise regular hack-days. OK, so far we've only done one! - still it was very positive and successful; We managed to develop and release a package during the hack-day!
In the run up to organising it, we felt strongly that there had to be a specific focus, a goal for the hackathon. For us this was "to release a package", for others this may be bug-fixing, (IMHO I'm not convinced that the "bug fixing" will motivate developers to attend). The devil is in the details.
From my own experience of the v5 hackathons (in Amsterdam and London), those lacked focus - other than "here is v5, play with it" - while that was okay, many felt directionless. We should learn from that. Still I enjoyed hanging out with the Umbraco community on those days. :-)
Belgian chapter of the #umbraco gang will be having a hackaton on November 17th in Antwerp. Sounds like a nice plan to hunt down bugs which can be easily fixed.
@lee yep, good point. It was just an idea really to make it a bit more regular and formal, so we can plan ahead. Bugs were just an initial idea really as there is a list of stuff in the issue tracker that can be tackled as a focus for the communitfy leaving more formal stuff to the HQ.
It makes sense to use that as it is already there and is a central tool where the whole communiy can vote for bugs and issues and then they can be worked on in priority order. Possibly Sebastiaan could control the ones that were worked on by segmenting them further?
But of course, there are new features on the list as well like the SignalR request that has already got 6 votes. That could be the focus for one particular hackday for instance, but it would need a specific requirement. Just adding SignalR isnt a simple request, it would need some skin and bones around it before just hacking it in.
Tim Saunders @munkimagik suggested a similar thing a while back in the Google Groups to give the community a focus instead of doing a scattergun approach to development. Now the HQ is a lot more structured, it makes sense for the community to follow suit and maybe work in small agile teams or very quick sprints to tackle a few bugs or small features at a time...
Just my thoughts anyway really to try and get some more traction :)
@Lee I agree with you partly, it's actually very statifying for some people to fix that little thing that has been bugging them for ages but that the HQ won't fix because it's not a big priority. Also, a lot of things in the issue tracker are actually feature requests, again most of them pretty minor but every little improvement that makes thousands of users happy should make the person who helped out happy! :-)
Other than that, it's obviously very cool to make a package! Remember to post your list of package ideas here by the way, I've lost it again (d'oh!).
Anyway, we love hackathons at the HQ and are happy to help support everyone going to one, so if there's anything you need then let us know and we'll see what we can do!
For me regular hackathons with the focus of fixing bugs would make a lot of sense.
I think the biggest win for doing it is to get more people educated on how to actually contribute to the core. Even with a lot of docs seeing how it's done and trying it is a much better approach.
We would certainly love to host a hackathon at the uCommerce HQ in Aarhus to try it out, but would probably need some core peeps to attend to help out with attendee quetsions. With a focus of bug fixing I think the biggest win for a dev implementing a fix would be seeing it actually make it into the core on the day.
Would it not be better to put the list of packages in the issue tracker as I mentioned before? then it is all in one central space? also would be good to segment bugs from features too?
Makes it clearer and more structured.
That way people can maybe pick from a list if they are looking to do something but needed some ideas and inspiration. They can always look in the same space and see what was voted most for?
No, the issue tracker really is for the core only, anything we don't think fits the core of Umbraco is marked as "Won't fix" as well. Most packages are great for a subset of people but have no place in the core.
Besides, packages are community driven, so if the list belongs anywhere, it would be on Our. Not sure how we can facilitate that but I'm open to ideas.
@Søren Yup, love that too, part of us helping out would also include reviews and direction, should be really easy to get your fixes in the core if not on the day itself, then really soon after that.
i think the hackathons need to be blended in terms of format, I think fixing some bugs is a good way of introducing people to the concepof contributing, but it also needs to be free flowing so if someone does turn up and chats and has an idea that has value be it a package, an extension or something else that may be even outlandish..
but regardless of that I agreee having the bug list is a great starting point.
I imagine there'd be themed hackathons: Bug squash, Cool package, Try to implement a new feature, Create a website for charity, etc. There's so much you can do with this!
Regular worldwide Umbraco Hackathons
Hi everybody
We are currently in the process of organising the pre Umbraco UK Festival hackathon during which we are looking to tackle as many bugs as possible from the Umbraco issue tracker in a single day.
After having a brief discussion with Søren Spelling Lund of uCommerce, we thought it would be a good idea to start the ball rolling on making this a more regular event.
It would be a great way of fixing bugs and helping make Umbraco more stable, but more importantly it would help introduce more developers to the Umbraco project showing them how it is structured and how best to contribute back to the core.
This would help to keep Umbraco fresh, and would significantly help the HQ move the project on. The community could concentrate on minor, easy to fix bugs and issues, leaving the HQ to concentrate on more advanced features and new functionality.
Anyway, I just thought I'd throw the idea out there and see what everyone thought. I'd be happy to help control organising the days, and we at The Cogworks would be happy to host events both in London and Manchester in the UK, and maybe some other areas/coutries if there was enough interest.
I'm thinking maybe one day every other month in the UK, alternating between the North and South? But I'm open to suggestions...
Let me know anyway...
Cheers
Adam
Great initiative! #h5yr
Our umBristol user-group have started to organise regular hack-days. OK, so far we've only done one! - still it was very positive and successful; We managed to develop and release a package during the hack-day!
In the run up to organising it, we felt strongly that there had to be a specific focus, a goal for the hackathon. For us this was "to release a package", for others this may be bug-fixing, (IMHO I'm not convinced that the "bug fixing" will motivate developers to attend). The devil is in the details.
From my own experience of the v5 hackathons (in Amsterdam and London), those lacked focus - other than "here is v5, play with it" - while that was okay, many felt directionless. We should learn from that. Still I enjoyed hanging out with the Umbraco community on those days. :-)
Cheers, Lee.
Hi,
Belgian chapter of the #umbraco gang will be having a hackaton on November 17th in Antwerp. Sounds like a nice plan to hunt down bugs which can be easily fixed.
More info can be found here
Cheers,
/Dirk
@lee yep, good point. It was just an idea really to make it a bit more regular and formal, so we can plan ahead. Bugs were just an initial idea really as there is a list of stuff in the issue tracker that can be tackled as a focus for the communitfy leaving more formal stuff to the HQ.
It makes sense to use that as it is already there and is a central tool where the whole communiy can vote for bugs and issues and then they can be worked on in priority order. Possibly Sebastiaan could control the ones that were worked on by segmenting them further?
But of course, there are new features on the list as well like the SignalR request that has already got 6 votes. That could be the focus for one particular hackday for instance, but it would need a specific requirement. Just adding SignalR isnt a simple request, it would need some skin and bones around it before just hacking it in.
Tim Saunders @munkimagik suggested a similar thing a while back in the Google Groups to give the community a focus instead of doing a scattergun approach to development. Now the HQ is a lot more structured, it makes sense for the community to follow suit and maybe work in small agile teams or very quick sprints to tackle a few bugs or small features at a time...
Just my thoughts anyway really to try and get some more traction :)
@Lee I agree with you partly, it's actually very statifying for some people to fix that little thing that has been bugging them for ages but that the HQ won't fix because it's not a big priority. Also, a lot of things in the issue tracker are actually feature requests, again most of them pretty minor but every little improvement that makes thousands of users happy should make the person who helped out happy! :-)
Other than that, it's obviously very cool to make a package! Remember to post your list of package ideas here by the way, I've lost it again (d'oh!).
Anyway, we love hackathons at the HQ and are happy to help support everyone going to one, so if there's anything you need then let us know and we'll see what we can do!
For me regular hackathons with the focus of fixing bugs would make a lot of sense.
I think the biggest win for doing it is to get more people educated on how to actually contribute to the core. Even with a lot of docs seeing how it's done and trying it is a much better approach.
We would certainly love to host a hackathon at the uCommerce HQ in Aarhus to try it out, but would probably need some core peeps to attend to help out with attendee quetsions. With a focus of bug fixing I think the biggest win for a dev implementing a fix would be seeing it actually make it into the core on the day.
Would it not be better to put the list of packages in the issue tracker as I mentioned before? then it is all in one central space? also would be good to segment bugs from features too?
Makes it clearer and more structured.
That way people can maybe pick from a list if they are looking to do something but needed some ideas and inspiration. They can always look in the same space and see what was voted most for?
No, the issue tracker really is for the core only, anything we don't think fits the core of Umbraco is marked as "Won't fix" as well. Most packages are great for a subset of people but have no place in the core.
Besides, packages are community driven, so if the list belongs anywhere, it would be on Our. Not sure how we can facilitate that but I'm open to ideas.
@Søren Yup, love that too, part of us helping out would also include reviews and direction, should be really easy to get your fixes in the core if not on the day itself, then really soon after that.
i think the hackathons need to be blended in terms of format, I think fixing some bugs is a good way of introducing people to the concepof contributing, but it also needs to be free flowing so if someone does turn up and chats and has an idea that has value be it a package, an extension or something else that may be even outlandish..
but regardless of that I agreee having the bug list is a great starting point.
@sebastiaan yep, fair enough...good point. I'm getting my packages and core mixed up :)
Would stil be nice to have a central ideas place somewhere though for people to add package ideas to?
My main aim for hackathons was bug fixing really I suppose to help the core and product become more stable...
I imagine there'd be themed hackathons: Bug squash, Cool package, Try to implement a new feature, Create a website for charity, etc. There's so much you can do with this!
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