[Chicago] Fw: Idea: weekly Chicago coding sprints?

[Jess Balint]

Wow.... 6 am Monday morning... sounds like every programmers dream... Not!
:p

Anyways, what is the proposed location of this? Every week could be neat. 

-----Original Message-----
From: chicago-bounces at python.org [mailto:chicago-bounces at python.org] On
Behalf Of Jason R Huggins
Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 3:14 PM
To: chicago at python.org
Subject: [Chicago] Fw: Idea: weekly Chicago coding sprints?

Hey gang, sorry I missed the meeting last night... Hope it lived up to the 
hype. :-)

In other news, I was thinking... (and watch out when I start to think 
outloud)...

I'm waaaaay over due in updating my Oracle DB support patch for the Django 
framework.. So it turns out that late at night, I'd rather read boring 
comments on Reddit or Slashdot than actually write code... Which reminded 
of one of the cures for that... Coding Sprints and Paired Programming... 
Having someone looking over your shoulder... or being in a room with 
others working on similar tasks help to keep you focused...

Which got me thinking more.... getting the motivation to write open source 
software when I'm not paid to do it is alot like getting the motivation to 
go exercise... It helps to have a buddy or team to train with...

Which got me thinking more... what if every week there was a "mini-sprint" 
held at some central location downtown where folks can meet up and code... 
Kind of like a "running club", but for coders. A coffee shop with WiFi 
near Millennium Park might work, or perhaps the food court in Citibank 
Plaza . To fit into the work schedule of people who get paid to do other 
things, the "sprint" would be before or after the standard 8-5 work 
schedule of most office dwellers....

My proposal is that every Monday morning from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., open 
source hackers meet somewhere in downtown Chicago and work on the projects 
that interest them... We could even setup projectors and let bystanders 
help find bugs on the big screen... or having a big screen would just 
serve to bystanders as a window into the wacky world of non-paid software 
development. Perhaps, I'll even find someone who wants to help me with the 
Oracle/Django patch... and it'll reduce my temptation to just loaf around 
and read Slashdot....

This doesn't have to be Python-specific.... Rubyists, Perl Mongers, 
PHPimps, and Javanauts are welcome, too. Forget the Lispers, though.. they 
talk funny.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Flames? 

-Jason
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