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Better Living Through Open Source Corey Ehmke June 2013
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Who am I?
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A developer with a long memory. (And a longer history.)
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An active Open Source contributor.
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A lead developer at Apartments.com.
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A lifelong learner.
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One day I asked myself...
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What matters most to me as a developer? “ ”
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#1 Getting better at what I do.
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Building cool and useful stuff. #2
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Finding learning & teaching moments. #3
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Practicing good citizenship. #4
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Then I asked myself...
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“That’s great, but how do you actually practice these values?”
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Hmm. Good question, self. Let’s see.
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#1
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#1 Getting better at what I do.
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Studies have shown* that getting better at what you do involves three kinds of “stuff”.
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Studies have shown* that getting better at what you do involves three kinds of “stuff”. * I totally made this up actually.
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The Three Kinds of Stuff
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The Three Kinds of Stuff Stuff I've Done
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Stuff I Do Every Day The Three Kinds of Stuff Stuff I've Done
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Stuff I Do Every Day The Three Kinds of Stuff Stuff I've Done Stuff I Want to Do
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Stuff you’ve done is the problem-solving vocabulary you have to work with.
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Stuff you do every day reinforces that vocabulary.
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Stuff you’re interested in motivates you to expand your vocabulary.
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So getting better at what you do requires both practice and making time for things that interest you.
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Interlude #1: Advice from an English Major
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I used to read a lot of crap.
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I used to read a lot of crap.
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I used to read a lot of crap.
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I used to read a lot of crap.
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In school I practiced reading more crap.
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In school I practiced reading more crap.
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In school I practiced reading more crap.
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In school I practiced reading more crap.
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Then I discovered books that hurt my brain. (In a good way.)
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Then I discovered books that hurt my brain. (In a good way.)
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Then I discovered books that hurt my brain. (In a good way.)
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Then I discovered books that hurt my brain. (In a good way.)
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Reading these books expanded my mental vocabulary.
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Reading code can have the same effect...
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...but only if it’s really good code.
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Open Source gives you access to the best code ever written.
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Welcome to the library.
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Welcome to the library.
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#2
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#2 Building cool and useful stuff.
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If you’re lucky, your work involves creating and delivering useful stuff.
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Most of it will be good. Some of it will be great. (And some of it will come back to haunt you.)
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Business software has a finite number of users & stakeholders.
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Fewer stakeholders means that fewer voices shape the solution.
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Edge cases and client-specific code will eventually outweigh core functionality.
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In short, closed-source code loses focus over time.
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In open source software, users == stakeholders.
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Open source code gains focus and utility over time. (Until it stops being useful, at which point something quickly comes along to replace it.)
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Open sourcing your cool and useful stuff makes it cooler and even more useful.
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#3
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#3 Finding learning & teaching moments.
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Seer: My First Gem
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Simple, declarative DSL for graphing in RoR.
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Elegant design, clean code, plenty of tests, & even a sample project.
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At the time, my best work to date.
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My beautiful code was... not perfect.
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My test suite sucked.
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But the design was good and communicated intent.
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The open source community took what I designed and ran with it.
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Humbling and encouraging.
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`
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#4
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#4 Practicing good citizenship.
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I faced a challenge.
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I found a solution.
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Other people may have the same challenge.
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I should share the solution.
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Open source software is the new commons.
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If it weren’t for open source, most of us would not have the jobs we do.
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Don’t be that guy.
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Contributing Effectively
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Be a fixer. DO
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Be a scribe. DO
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DO Take bite-sized pieces.
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DO Get the maintainers familiar with your name.
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DON’T Change too much at once.
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DON’T Overcommit or over commit.
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DON’T Be a jerk.
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DON’T Be anonymous.
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Getting Started
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Questions?
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Corey Ehmke bantik.github.com @Bantik