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 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
