Lessons from the Other Side: Effectively Contributing to Open Source

Transcript

1. Lessons From The Other Side Michael Koziarski [email protected] Tuesday, 22

   May 12

2. Who am I? Tuesday, 22 May 12

3. Tuesday, 22 May 12

4. Tuesday, 22 May 12

5. Tuesday, 22 May 12

6. Tuesday, 22 May 12

7. Tuesday, 22 May 12

8. Tuesday, 22 May 12

9. Long Time Tuesday, 22 May 12

10. 6 Years! Tuesday, 22 May 12

11. Tuesday, 22 May 12

12. Tuesday, 22 May 12

13. Learned Many Lessons Tuesday, 22 May 12

14. Help Us Help You Tuesday, 22 May 12

15. Koz Lesson #1: Listen to Users Tuesday, 22 May 12

16. How do you spot a User? Tuesday, 22 May 12

17. It’d be cool if... Tuesday, 22 May 12

18. It’s a bit annoying how... Tuesday, 22 May 12

19. Why do I have to ...? Tuesday, 22 May 12

20. Here’s a patch that ... Tuesday, 22 May 12

21. I’ll never use your software until ... Tuesday, 22 May

    12

22. More Modular Tuesday, 22 May 12

23. Has Tail Call Optimization Magic Beans Tuesday, 22 May 12

24. Supports full internationalization Tuesday, 22 May 12

25. Supports a real database Tuesday, 22 May 12

26. Runs on Windows 8 Tuesday, 22 May 12

27. Supports the ‘enterprise’ Tuesday, 22 May 12

28. You Stop Swearing At Conferences Tuesday, 22 May 12

29. Tuesday, 22 May 12

30. I’ll never use your software Tuesday, 22 May 12

31. Implications for You Tuesday, 22 May 12

32. How could I add function X? Tuesday, 22 May 12

33. Has anyone tried fixing Y? Tuesday, 22 May 12

34. I can’t use this until Z! Tuesday, 22 May 12

35. Why doesn’t your craptastic hunk of junk do Z? Tuesday,

    22 May 12

36. “This is the very reason I don’t use Rails, and

    I know there’s many others who think like me.” Tuesday, 22 May 12

37. “This is the very reason I don’t use Rails, and

    I know there’s many others who think like me.” Tuesday, 22 May 12

38. “[blah blah] I don’t use Rails [blah blah blah]” Tuesday,

    22 May 12

39. Tuesday, 22 May 12

40. Koz Lesson #2: Users Make The Best Contributors Tuesday, 22

    May 12

41. Koz Lesson #2: Users Make The Best Contributors* Tuesday, 22

    May 12

42. Scratching Their Own Itch Tuesday, 22 May 12

43. Solves a Problem They Actually Had Tuesday, 22 May 12

44. Help Your Users Tuesday, 22 May 12

45. Users as Contributors Tuesday, 22 May 12

46. Users as Contributors Users Tuesday, 22 May 12

47. Users as Contributors Users Contributors Tuesday, 22 May 12

48. More Users Tuesday, 22 May 12

49. More Contributors! Tuesday, 22 May 12

50. Better Product!! Tuesday, 22 May 12

51. Even More Users!!! Tuesday, 22 May 12

52. Problem! Tuesday, 22 May 12

53. Our Users are Developers Tuesday, 22 May 12

54. Our Users are Engineers Tuesday, 22 May 12

55. Our Users are Computer Scientists Tuesday, 22 May 12

56. Rewrite Stuff Tuesday, 22 May 12

57. Rewrite Stuff Endlessly Tuesday, 22 May 12

58. <% if !protected_attributes.empty? %> ... <% else %> ... <%

    end %> Tuesday, 22 May 12

59. Tuesday, 22 May 12

60. <% if !protected_attributes.empty? %> ... <% else %> ... <%

    end %> Tuesday, 22 May 12

61. <% if protected_attributes.any? %> ... <% else %> ... <%

    end %> Tuesday, 22 May 12

62. <% unless protected_attributes.empty? %> ... <% else %> ... <%

    end %> Tuesday, 22 May 12

63. Tuesday, 22 May 12

64. Tuesday, 22 May 12

65. Tuesday, 22 May 12

66. Tuesday, 22 May 12

67. Tuesday, 22 May 12

68. Tuesday, 22 May 12

69. Tuesday, 22 May 12

70. 34 Tuesday, 22 May 12

71. Tuesday, 22 May 12

72. Implications for You Tuesday, 22 May 12

73. The Bike Shed is Green Tuesday, 22 May 12

74. Cope Tuesday, 22 May 12

75. Focus on small, digestible fixes. Tuesday, 22 May 12

76. Focus on minor annoyances Tuesday, 22 May 12

77. Koz Lesson #3: Listen to Contributors Tuesday, 22 May 12

78. Contributors are like Super Users Tuesday, 22 May 12

79. Trust Tuesday, 22 May 12

80. The Patches Problem Tuesday, 22 May 12

81. The Early Days Volunteers Work To Do Tuesday, 22 May

    12

82. Equilibrium Volunteers Work To Do Tuesday, 22 May 12

83. Eventually Volunteers Work To Do Tuesday, 22 May 12

84. Trouble Volunteers Work To Do Tuesday, 22 May 12

85. Danger Tuesday, 22 May 12

86. Neglected Patches Tuesday, 22 May 12

87. Tuesday, 22 May 12

88. Tuesday, 22 May 12

89. Tuesday, 22 May 12

90. Fork! Fork! Fork! Tuesday, 22 May 12

91. Tuesday, 22 May 12

92. Tuesday, 22 May 12

93. Implications for you Tuesday, 22 May 12

94. Do the grunt work Tuesday, 22 May 12

95. We mess up Tuesday, 22 May 12

96. We mess up Constantly Tuesday, 22 May 12

97. Don’t take it personally Tuesday, 22 May 12

98. Lesson for You #1: Maintainers are Human Tuesday, 22 May

    12

99. Busy Tuesday, 22 May 12

100. Tuesday, 22 May 12

101. Tuesday, 22 May 12

102. Tuesday, 22 May 12

103. Tuesday, 22 May 12

104. Tuesday, 22 May 12

105. Make Mistakes Tuesday, 22 May 12

106. Tuesday, 22 May 12

107. Tuesday, 22 May 12

108. Need Persuading Tuesday, 22 May 12

109. Tuesday, 22 May 12

110. Tuesday, 22 May 12

111. Tuesday, 22 May 12

112. Tuesday, 22 May 12

113. Tuesday, 22 May 12

114. Tuesday, 22 May 12

115. Use Concrete Examples Tuesday, 22 May 12

116. It’s a POLS violation Tuesday, 22 May 12

117. It’s a POLS violation Tuesday, 22 May 12

118. It’s not compliant with RFC2549 Tuesday, 22 May 12

119. It’s not compliant with RFC2549 Tuesday, 22 May 12

120. It could be more elegant Tuesday, 22 May 12

121. It could be more elegant Tuesday, 22 May 12

122. This breaks when ... Tuesday, 22 May 12

123. This doesn’t let me ... Tuesday, 22 May 12

124. Lesson for You #2 Applying Patches is Hard Work Tuesday,

     22 May 12

125. Tuesday, 22 May 12

126. Tuesday, 22 May 12

127. Tuesday, 22 May 12

128. Tuesday, 22 May 12

129. What’s So Hard!? Tuesday, 22 May 12

130. Why does the change fix it? Tuesday, 22 May 12

131. Is it the right fix? Tuesday, 22 May 12

132. def some_huge_method # 100 lines snipped rescue nil end Tuesday,

     22 May 12

133. Tuesday, 22 May 12

134. Lesson for You #3: Contributions should be a by-product Tuesday,

     22 May 12

135. Don’t go looking for problems to solve Tuesday, 22 May

     12

136. Solve the problems you find as you work. Tuesday, 22

     May 12

137. Example Tuesday, 22 May 12

138. $ ./script/generate model Person Tuesday, 22 May 12

139. CREATE TABLE `people` ( id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, name

     varchar(255), employer_id int(11), PRIMARY KEY (`id`), KEY `index_people_by_employer` (`employer_id`) ) Tuesday, 22 May 12

140. Writing SQL is hard Tuesday, 22 May 12

141. $ ./script/generate model Person Tuesday, 22 May 12

142. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     end end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

143. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.column :name, :string, :null=>true t.column :employer_id, :integer, :null=>false t.column :created_at, :datetime t.column :updated_at :datetime end end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

144. $ rake migrate Tuesday, 22 May 12

145. Why do I have to edit the migration? Tuesday, 22

     May 12

146. $ ./script/rails generate model Person name:string \ employer_id:integer Tuesday, 22

     May 12

147. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.string :name, :null=>true t.integer :employer_id, :null=>false t.timestamps end end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

148. $ rake migrate Tuesday, 22 May 12

149. class Person < ActiveRecord::Base end Tuesday, 22 May 12

150. class Person < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :employer end Tuesday, 22 May

     12

151. Why do I have to edit the model? Tuesday, 22

     May 12

152. $ ./script/rails generate model Person \ name:string \ employer:belongs_to Tuesday,

     22 May 12

153. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.string :name, :null=>true t.integer :employer_id, :null=>false t.timestamps end end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

154. class Person < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :employer end Tuesday, 22 May

     12

155. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.string :name, :null=>true t.integer :employer_id, :null=>false t.timestamps end add_index :people, :employer_id end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

156. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.string :name, :null=>true t.integer :employer_id, :null=>false t.timestamps end add_index :people, :employer_id end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

157. Why do I have to add an index manually? Tuesday,

     22 May 12

158. $ ./script/rails generate model Person \ name:string \ employer:belongs_to Tuesday,

     22 May 12

159. class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up create_table :people do |t|

     t.string :name, :null=>true t.integer :employer_id, :null=>false t.timestamps end add_index :people, :employer_id end def self.down drop_table :people end end Tuesday, 22 May 12

160. What Next? Tuesday, 22 May 12

161. Small Incremental Improvements Tuesday, 22 May 12

162. Motivated By Real Frustration Tuesday, 22 May 12

163. Huge Net Improvement Tuesday, 22 May 12

164. Not Just For Toy Features Tuesday, 22 May 12

165. singapore_now = Time.zone.now # => Thu, 17 May 2012 18:12:11

     SGT +08:00 wellington_now = singapore_now.in_time_zone("Wellington") # => Thu, 17 May 2012 22:12:11 NZST +12:00 singapore_now == wellington_now # => true Tuesday, 22 May 12

166. Conclusions Tuesday, 22 May 12

167. Find Improvements During Your Day Job Tuesday, 22 May 12

168. Submit Them In Small, Digestible Chunks Tuesday, 22 May 12

169. Don’t Take Our Mistakes Personally Tuesday, 22 May 12

170. Thanks! Michael Koziarski [email protected] @nzkoz Tuesday, 22 May 12