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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