Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition
Philippe Bruhat (BooK) said:
Hi,
As the main organizer of the next Perl QA Hackathon in Lyon (the venue is
here: http://goo.gl/maps/mXo15), I would like to collect some feedback on
the hackathon that we just came back from, in Lancaster.
Great! ^^
I would like to collect your impressions about what worked and what
didn't, what was missing, what you want for next year (including dates,
but know it's going to be a Friday-Sunday hackathon). You can reply in
public or in private. I already wrote down all the things I liked from
this year, as the team has set the bar quite high already. :-)
Here's my public feedback.
I've been to two QA hackathons, and this one was by far the best one! :)
Here are the good bits (please keep):
+ I loved the food
+ The fact that so many came
+ The discussions and stories and gossip :)
+ Having a working wireless network
+ The consensus sessions
+ Lancaster
+ Good to get an info folder
+ Useful to have phone #'s on the attendee badge
+ The coffee was very enjoyable
Here are the bits that would be nice to improve at the next hackathon:
- More than one room for hacking? The main room we had was packed.
- 16h access to venue would be nice (not 10/8h). Hacking at the pub wasn't
too bad though.
- Standup-meetings at the end of the day would be nice to have. I would
have loved to hear what people were up to.
- An optional hackathon commercial support ticket price would have been
nice. Some businesses have budgets for training but not sponsorship.
Here are a few ideas maybe worth trying out:
+ Have the hackathon on thu/fri/sat/sun (one additional day), to make it
easier for attendees who can't spend weekends hacking but would like to
come anyway.
+ Move hackathon dates to a few weeks earlier, so attendees can submit
hackathon-relevant talks to YAPC and other conferences before deadlines.
+ Make an effort to invite people for external (non-Perl) communities.
Examples might include: Distro vendors; Packaging experts; People in the
TAP community (See the tap-l IETF mailing list).
+ Set one lofty coding-related goal for the hackathon, with intention that
"everyone" can help make it happen, and with a list of tasks anyone
(even new attendees) can work on.
The goal is to add a bunch of bullet points to our work document, so that
we can start early on making the next QA hackathon even more productive
and useful.
Hope that my comments help somehow.
- Salve, who enjoyed the hackathon a lot
--
#!/usr/bin/perl
sub AUTOLOAD{$AUTOLOAD=~/.*::(\d+)/;seek(DATA,$1,0);print# Salve Joshua Nilsen
getc DATA}$"="'};&{'";@_=unpack("C*",unpack("u*",':4@,$'.#
'2!--"5-(50P%$PL,!0X354UC-PP%/0\`'."\n"));eval "&{'@_'}"; __END__ is near! :)
Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition
I use a hackathon to...
* Sync up with what else is going on
* Make long standing hard/bikeshed/warnock'd decisions
* Remind myself that there are people behind the emails
* Be a resource for Test::*, TAP, MakeMaker, build...
* Hack away at code, particularly long standing issues which
haven't been getting attention.
QA Hackathons are often my most days of the year. What I'm looking for
is the ability to focus on the hackathon without worrying about the
necessaries like food, water, internet, power, tables, chairs,
whiteboards, caffeine, bedding, transport... you get the idea.
That said, none of it has to be fancy. The TravelLodge was just fine.
Clean bed. Good shower. Bus to the venue. I don't expect great food
either, just something to keep me going for the weekend.
To that end, the Lancaster team did a lovely job. From being shuttled
from the train to the hotel (I was a bit embarrassed once I saw how
short a walk it was), to the wonderful spread of food and drinks, to the
packet of maps and information (I liked the potted history) to the
little details like phone numbers on the name badges. Claire, Ian, Mark
and any other Shadowcats were wonderful hosts.
On 4/17/13 11:49 AM, Salve J Nilsen wrote:
> Here are the good bits (please keep):
All that, just s{coffee}{tea}. :)
> Here are the bits that would be nice to improve at the next hackathon:
I generally agree with everything Salve said.
I kind of enjoyed having everyone in the same room. People and groups
weren't isolated. I could lean over or walk over to talk to who I
needed. I could hear my name being taken in vain. Sub-projects seemed
to have their own spaces. I didn't feel cramped and I didn't feel
overwhelmed by the noise. However, I'd understand if others didn't like
it. Perhaps one room, but a larger one.
Definitely would like longer access to the site, or a clear alternative
hacking site. A quiet pub next to the hotel is ok.
One thing I would recommend changing is less lavish dinners. They were
absolutely lovely, but I felt they detracted from hacking time. I don't
think we made it out of the Thai place until after 11pm. Perhaps one
lavish dinner at the start, to get everybody talking, and for the rest
we get take away served at the site. Maybe one on the last night. More
time to hack.
For the international travelers, perhaps we could register who will be
needing a SIM card, and what kind, so we only have to do one run to the
shops. And thank you Ian for sorting that for me.
Finally, as much concrete information about the hackathon as early as
possible. At least the date and city for travel planning purposes. The
details of this one were announced quite late for international travel
or having to take time off work.
Thanks so much to hackathon organizers past, present and future.
Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition
On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Philippe Bruhat (BooK) < philippe.bru...@free.fr> wrote: > Hi, > > As the main organizer of the next Perl QA Hackathon in Lyon (the venue > is here: http://goo.gl/maps/mXo15), I would like to collect some feedback > on the hackathon that we just came back from, in Lancaster. > > I would like to collect your impressions about what worked and what > didn't, what was missing, what you want for next year (including dates, > but know it's going to be a Friday-Sunday hackathon). You can reply in > public or in private. I already wrote down all the things I liked from > this year, as the team has set the bar quite high already. :-) > > The goal is to add a bunch of bullet points to our work document, so that > we can start early on making the next QA hackathon even more productive > and useful. > > Thanks in advance, > > > Post-scriptum: The main communication channels about the Lyon Perl QA > Hackathon will be the perl-qa mailing list and the #perl-qa IRC channel. > I don't intend to spam them too much until we get closer to the event. :-) > > I agree with most of the things Salve and Schwern already said. Two comments though: 1) Make sure to involve the perl 6 people (this might involve some harassing), this year Liz was the only one. They're doing somewhat similar things in a vacuum, it would be helpful for them to not repeat some of our mistakes. 2) Have some kind of post-dinner plan. It seems people ended up in different pubs without knowing where the rest was. This decreases chances for useful evening-time discussion. Something as simple as a designated pub for the evening could be helpful. Leon
Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition
On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 11:58:55AM +0200, Philippe Bruhat (BooK) wrote: > I would like to collect your impressions about what worked and what > didn't, what was missing, what you want for next year For those of us participating remotely, some small amount of video conferencing, perhaps to allow eavesdropping on/participating with some discussions, would be helpful. Perhaps just throwing a webcam on in the corner? But being able to conduct multi-way conversations would be even nicer.
Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition
On 4/18/13 6:42 AM, Karen Etheridge wrote: > On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 11:58:55AM +0200, Philippe Bruhat (BooK) wrote: >> I would like to collect your impressions about what worked and what >> didn't, what was missing, what you want for next year > > For those of us participating remotely, some small amount of video > conferencing, perhaps to allow eavesdropping on/participating with some > discussions, would be helpful. Perhaps just throwing a webcam on in the > corner? But being able to conduct multi-way conversations would be even > nicer. +1 to that. A sacrificial laptop or three doing video conferencing which can be carried around the room. Or encourage one on-site person from each project to be in a Google Hangout (or similar technology).
