Re: 2020 HackIllinois hackathon: after-action report
Very cool, Nate! Thanks for the report. Valorie On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 5:40 PM Nate Graham wrote: > Greetings KDE friends! > > This weekend I attended the 2020 HackIllinois event in Champaign-Urbana > as a FOSS mentor, representing KDE. I'd like to present my after-action > report: > > > > *Overview* > > First the good news: the KDE team won! > > My students reported that the judges were impressed with their results, > excitement, and passion, and the fact that one of the submitted patches > (https://invent.kde.org/kde/konsole/-/merge_requests/68) has already > been merged. > > My students principally worked on building a visualizer for plasma-pa's > microphone audio input level > (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411563) and managed to put > together a pretty decent proof-of-concept: > https://phabricator.kde.org/F8146046 (code is available at > https://github.com/NSLeung/KDE-Neon-HackIllinois2020/commits/joey_branch). > > The code is not in a merge-worthy state, but could definitely get there > eventually. > > They also submitted some nice smaller patches: the aforementioned > Konsole fix, and one for Dolphin too: > https://phabricator.kde.org/D27757. They also made a thorough > investigation of a significant Yakuake issue that has been affecting two > of them: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389448. > > Two of the students in particular seem quite eager to continue their > contributions. > > > > *Promo & social observations:* > > Nobody had an unkind or negative word for KDE. People who had heard of > us really seemed to love us. > > The other FOSS mentors at the event who I talked to had all heard of KDE > and some had used Plasma in the past or still do. While most of the > students I talked to had never heard of KDE, most of the ones who had > were already using a Plasma-based distro (mostly KDE Neon, with some > Manjaro)! Several GNOME-using students were impressed by what they saw > and eager to help out, and the students already using KDE software were > super duper enthusiastic. Most had never filed any bug reports or > submitted patches, but eagerly jumped into this. They did not find the > process of doing so especially difficult, so I suspect that a lack of > outreach was principally what had kept them from doing so before. > > Students were especially impressed with Yakuake, the embedded terminals > in Dolphin and Kate, and Plasma itself. They all thought it was very > attractive and polished-looking. > > > > *Onboarding & technical observations:* > > Overall, the process of setting up a KDE development environment from > scratch was not a major pain point, especially for the Linux-using > students. However a number of build failures took a lot of time to > investigate and teach people how to work around: > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418328, > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418330, > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418331, > https://phabricator.kde.org/D10041. Please help to keep the master > branches of your projects compilable with default CMake settings, common > compilers, and easily installable dependencies, everyone! :) > > The students using Apple laptops had to set up their development > environments in virtual machines due to a lack of macOS support in our > current developer tooling and documentation. I had them install Neon > Developer Edition, which worked fine overall, but it occurred to me that > this edition would be more useful for its stated purpose if it shipped > with a pre-generated .kdesrc-buildrc config file, plus kdesrc-build > itself and all necessary dependencies from > > https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Install_the_dependencies#KDE_neon.2C_Debian.2C_Ubuntu.2C_Kubuntu. > > These enhancements would have yielded been significant time savings for > my VM-using students. > > > > *Hardware observations:* > > From my observations, at least 70% of the students attending the event > were using Apple hardware running macOS. Most of the remaining students > were using non-Apple hardware running some flavor of Linux, about a > 60/40 mix of Plasma and GNOME, respectively. I did not see a single > student using a PC running any version of Windows. > > > > Overall it felt like a worthwhile endeavor! Now time for some sleep... > > Nate > -- http://about.me/valoriez - pronouns: she/her
2020 HackIllinois hackathon: after-action report
Greetings KDE friends! This weekend I attended the 2020 HackIllinois event in Champaign-Urbana as a FOSS mentor, representing KDE. I'd like to present my after-action report: *Overview* First the good news: the KDE team won! My students reported that the judges were impressed with their results, excitement, and passion, and the fact that one of the submitted patches (https://invent.kde.org/kde/konsole/-/merge_requests/68) has already been merged. My students principally worked on building a visualizer for plasma-pa's microphone audio input level (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411563) and managed to put together a pretty decent proof-of-concept: https://phabricator.kde.org/F8146046 (code is available at https://github.com/NSLeung/KDE-Neon-HackIllinois2020/commits/joey_branch). The code is not in a merge-worthy state, but could definitely get there eventually. They also submitted some nice smaller patches: the aforementioned Konsole fix, and one for Dolphin too: https://phabricator.kde.org/D27757. They also made a thorough investigation of a significant Yakuake issue that has been affecting two of them: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=389448. Two of the students in particular seem quite eager to continue their contributions. *Promo & social observations:* Nobody had an unkind or negative word for KDE. People who had heard of us really seemed to love us. The other FOSS mentors at the event who I talked to had all heard of KDE and some had used Plasma in the past or still do. While most of the students I talked to had never heard of KDE, most of the ones who had were already using a Plasma-based distro (mostly KDE Neon, with some Manjaro)! Several GNOME-using students were impressed by what they saw and eager to help out, and the students already using KDE software were super duper enthusiastic. Most had never filed any bug reports or submitted patches, but eagerly jumped into this. They did not find the process of doing so especially difficult, so I suspect that a lack of outreach was principally what had kept them from doing so before. Students were especially impressed with Yakuake, the embedded terminals in Dolphin and Kate, and Plasma itself. They all thought it was very attractive and polished-looking. *Onboarding & technical observations:* Overall, the process of setting up a KDE development environment from scratch was not a major pain point, especially for the Linux-using students. However a number of build failures took a lot of time to investigate and teach people how to work around: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418328, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418330, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418331, https://phabricator.kde.org/D10041. Please help to keep the master branches of your projects compilable with default CMake settings, common compilers, and easily installable dependencies, everyone! :) The students using Apple laptops had to set up their development environments in virtual machines due to a lack of macOS support in our current developer tooling and documentation. I had them install Neon Developer Edition, which worked fine overall, but it occurred to me that this edition would be more useful for its stated purpose if it shipped with a pre-generated .kdesrc-buildrc config file, plus kdesrc-build itself and all necessary dependencies from https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Install_the_dependencies#KDE_neon.2C_Debian.2C_Ubuntu.2C_Kubuntu. These enhancements would have yielded been significant time savings for my VM-using students. *Hardware observations:* From my observations, at least 70% of the students attending the event were using Apple hardware running macOS. Most of the remaining students were using non-Apple hardware running some flavor of Linux, about a 60/40 mix of Plasma and GNOME, respectively. I did not see a single student using a PC running any version of Windows. Overall it felt like a worthwhile endeavor! Now time for some sleep... Nate
Reminder, FOSS-North march 29th
Hi KDE folks, Just a reminder that there's a KDE community event for whoever would like to participate, at the end of March in Gothenburg, Sweden. If you'd like to present something, meet Swedish KDE or FreeBSD people, or just have coffee and cake with Open Source people, do stop by -- or propose a presentation. https://community.kde.org/Promo/Events/FossNorth [ade] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
