> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote: > > Sounds a lot more feasible than travelling to .us for a hack. > But I'm wondering what this actually achieves? Sure, it gets people > to focus on Getting Things Done, but a *scheduled* IRC+pastebin-based > hackathon could do that without the hassle and cost of travel.
IMHO, a 'virtual hackathon' has been proven not to be effective for us. In the past when we've tried those, they've been a dismal failure as so few people show up. The communication latency is also so high (people get distracted, bored, conflicting schedules) that a 'virtual hackathon' is really little better than the mailing lists we use every day. I think forcing people to get in the same physical room free from other distractions a few times a year (certainly no more than once a quarter!) would have good benefits for us as a project. It'd serve as a forcing function for our focus as a group: and that'd be excellent to drive innovation here. As I just said to David, I think the ASF-wide hackathons aren't as effective because many people are too over-committed to be able to focus on one thing while they are there. -- justin
