Techhub Riga - tm 27.07

On developing things Toms Bauģis, 27.07.2012

Me● 1999-2007 - Riga - Tieto Konts● 2007-2011 - Galway, Ireland - Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI)● 2012 - Parse.ly

What ill talk about

The Hamster story

Open Source● take apart● modify● use

GNOME● desktop environment (just like windows / apple)● core applications - file manager, calculator, clock, etc

Project Hamsterhttp://projecthamster.wordpress.com/

GUADEC (GNOME User andDeveloper Conference)● Focused● Cheap● Awesome

How can i contribute?

6 days after the conferenceWork on hamster is going on. Ive masteredGlade basics, and how to connect to SQLite,and now im learning how to install/distribute files

+4d"i was bending my brains yesterday trying tomake it all look object-oriented but i hope to have a first version really soon"

+11d - patient zeroI kinda fixed dependencies and some other things so it should be possible to install it now

Started blog another 4 days later

Fast forward 4 months first serious contributions

From there● Patryk pushed us to get in shape for inclusion in GNOME● That meant exposure and translations● As a result hamster is now translated in 65+ languages and used by 50k+ people around the globe

Managed to make somethingactually useful

Few personal takeaways

Few personal takeawaysBeginnings can be slow enjoyed every bit

Few personal takeaways Sometimes the hardestpart is to take the plunge

So how hard can it be?(without any prior experience in the field)

● 3 hours to draw a rectangle● +2h to make the chart

Few personal takeawaysDont be shy about how you do it its about the result

Few personal takeawaysDont be shy of the result If somebody thinks they can do better - let them

Few personal takeawaysThere are lots of people out there but recruiting matters

Few personal takeawaysUse the source its open

Few personal takeawaysRelease early,release often

What excites me about open source

What excites me about open sourceScrew moneymoney talk is boring

What excites me about open source Free tutoringfrom patch reviews to patches and feedback

What excites me about open sourceYou are in control Fix it

What excites me about open sourceEveryone is in control

Parse.ly Dash http://parse.ly/

Right now● 12 people on team (7 devs)● some of our customers ○ mashable ○ thenextweb ○ ars technica● 55 million hits a day (~600/s)● 70 rackspace servers; moving to colo

How I became employee #4

"First off... we want tothank you for Hamster - I use it every day..."

Luckily turned out to be not that different from OSS apart from being full-time

Not that different● can be wherever internet is● working in a small, focused and diverse team● lot of the communication is async● flat[-ter] structure - parsely is me● meeting in person roughly every 6 month

Practicalities

Communication● IRC/Jabber● yammer (fenced facebook)● email● google docs

git & github for version control● comment on commits & commit lines● notifications of commits in IRC● unit tests fired off via web hooks

Work organization● pivotal for stories● lighthouse for bugs● monday is bugday ○ winner gets a hackday for next bugday

Observations

ObservationsLead

ObservationsLearn

ObservationsPivot

ObservationsSurrender Control

ObservationsFlow

To wrap it up

Share your work and release often

Do it yourselfor whatever floats your boat

Start small and iterate

Yes - now is good! in case you were wondering

Check yourself

before you

wreck yourself

Thanks!http://tiny.cc/tm-techhub

Techhub Riga - tm 27.07

by Toms Bauģis on Jul 28, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 1

Statistics