[Inpycon] First cut of grand schedule

Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon at au-kbc.org
Thu Apr 29 03:42:54 CEST 2010


On Wednesday 28 Apr 2010 8:52:03 am स्वक्ष wrote:
> > what is a sprint? it is when people who are working together on a project
> > get together (either in person or on IRC or on both) for a fixed period
> > of time and work non-stop to finish a fixed target (usually bugs, but
> > could also be features).
> 
> Afaik, in Python, it can also be documentation, translation, writing
> test cases, etc... I saw atleast two of those occuring at the atlanta
> sprints with core devs taking the time out to sit down with newcomers
> who wanted to contribute., discuss and help them learn the ropes.
> 

sure - but where are the core devs in India? Afaik there are only about 3-4 
internationally known projects by local people, but with all respect to Anand 
b, Anand c and Prabhu, there are not all that many people who have come 
forward to perform these tasks for those projects. The point I am making is 
that there is not enough traction for any project in India for a sprint. I 
remember organising a sprint for tamil translation for django strings and one 
for OSM to rectify the Mumbai map, but cannot see anything on the horizon.

> > hence the prerequisite for a sprint is a project with sufficient number
> > of developers with adequate rights to want to work together and feel that
> > f2f will help things. As far as I know the total number of projects with
> > Indian developers who are likely to attend the conference is zero.
> 
> I agree which is why I suggested that the local bangpypers monthly
> meetups be turned into something similar to dojorio --the brazilians
> have been very successful in encouraging a lot of newbies who over
> time have become contributors to python (and probably other projects
> too). However, instead of seeing the spirit behind the suggestions and
> taking the idea forward folks are busy nitpicking about it not being a
> separate thread or wrong list and other irrelevant things. That is
> demotivating, for me personally, because I find its easier to
> collaborate and contribute online with people who are thousands of
> miles away than arguing about silly things on local lists. Time-drain.

well, evangelism vs discussion is a thing that each group has to decide on. I 
fully agree now with Noufal that the conference should not spend time teaching 
python to raw newbies. This is an on-going thing that all of us can do in our 
spare time. I have conducted 5 workshops recently in various colleges, govt 
and industry. And in all of them have made sure to have at least one session 
on introducing python regardless of whether the organisers want it or not. The 
fossee folk are criss crossing the country doing the same thing. And if anyone 
here is interested, I can easily arrange audiences of half day/one day 
sessions for newbies in most places in India. (contact me offlist). This being 
the context, I see no reason why bangpypers meets should cater to newbies. 
They find it difficult enough to meet, let alone using up precious time on 
something not of interest to them. One thing that I have been repeatedly 
emphasising is that this conference, and bangpypers for that matter, is *not* 
foss or oss - it is language oriented. So bringing in foss/oss yardsticks to 
measure this is not appropriate. Things like mutual help, contribution back, 
which are taken for granted in the foss/oss world are not necessarily 
available here. So the reason for your demotivation is simply that you are 
looking for things in the wrong place. And I *did* notice a couple of people 
trying to help a newbie with virtualenv even though she was a mere 3-400 
kilometers away. And I have yet to see any query on bangpypers go unanswered.

> 
> > the other type of so-called sprint is where people assemble to write code
> > to order. The miserable failure of fsck.in to produce is an example of
> > what happens in that case. I know a couple of guys who did not write code
> > for months as they were saving up the code to write it at the
> > 'conference'. Whether they actually wrote it is anybody's guess. No,
> > writing code for show or on order is a non-starter.
> 
> Amen.
> 
> > lurking on the django-dev list I have seen sprints being planned for
> > pycon and for djangocon - but they have been planned and executed because
> > at times it is nice to have a f2f to clear up things that get confused on
> > mailing lists and
> 
> Yup, and its also heartening to see the patience and humility that
> these folks have with beginners. In my eyes, they have achieved a
> **lot** and yet they are firmly rooted to the ground.

are you talking about the patience and humility of the django core devs??? 

-- 
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves
Senior Associate
NRC-FOSS
http://certificate.nrcfoss.au-kbc.org.in


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