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On developing thingsToms Bauģis, 27.07.2012
Me
● 1999-2007 - Riga - Tieto Konts
● 2007-2011 - Galway, Ireland - Digital Enterprise
Research Institute (DERI)
● 2012 - Parse.ly
What i'll talk about
The Hamster story
Open Source
● take apart
● modify
● use
GNOME
● desktop environment (just like windows / apple)
● core applications - file manager, calculator, clock, etc
Project Hamster
http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/
● Focused
● Cheap
● Awesome
GUADEC (GNOME User and Developer Conference)
How can i contribute?
6 days after the conference
Work on hamster is going on. I've mastered Glade basics, and how to connect to SQLite, and now i'm learning how to install/distribute
files
+4d"i was bending my brains yesterday trying to make it all look object-oriented but i hope to
have a first version really soon"
I kinda fixed dependencies and some other things so it should be possible to install it
now
+11d - patient zero
Started blog another 4 days later
Fast forward 4 monthsfirst serious contributions
From there
● Patryk pushed us to get in shape for inclusion in GNOME
● That meant exposure and translations● As a result hamster is now translated in 65+
languages and used by 50k+ people around the globe
Managed to make something actually useful
Few personal takeaways
enjoyed every bit
Beginnings can be slow
Few personal takeaways
Sometimes the hardest part is to take the plunge
Few personal takeaways
So how hard can it be?(without any prior experience in the field)
● 3 hours to draw a rectangle
● +2h to make the chart
it's about the result
Don't be shy about how you do it
Few personal takeaways
If somebody thinks they can do better - let them
Don't be shy of the result
Few personal takeaways
There are lots of people out there
but recruiting matters
Few personal takeaways
Use the source it's open
Few personal takeaways
Release early, release often
Few personal takeaways
What excites me about open
source
Screw moneymoney talk is boring
What excites me about open source
Free tutoringfrom patch reviews to patches and feedback
What excites me about open source
Fix it
You are in control
What excites me about open source
Everyone is in control
What excites me about open source
Parse.ly Dashhttp://parse.ly/
Right now
● 12 people on team (7 devs)● some of our customers
○ mashable○ thenextweb○ ars technica
● 55 million hits a day (~600/s)● 70 rackspace servers; moving to colo
How I became employee #4
"First off... we want to thank you for Hamster - I
use it every day..."
Luckily turned out to be not that different from
OSSapart from being full-time
Not that different
● can be wherever internet is● working in a small, focused and diverse
team● lot of the communication is async● flat[-ter] structure - parsely is me● meeting in person roughly every 6 month
Practicalities
Communication
● IRC/Jabber
● yammer (fenced facebook)
● google docs
git & github for version control
● comment on commits & commit lines
● notifications of commits in IRC
● unit tests fired off via web hooks
Work organization
● pivotal for stories
● lighthouse for bugs
● monday is bugday
○ winner gets a hackday for next bugday
Observations
Lead
Observations
Learn
Observations
Pivot
Observations
Surrender Control
Observations
Flow
Observations
To wrap it up
Share your workand release often
Do it yourselfor whatever floats your boat
Start smalland iterate
Yes - now is good!in case you were wondering
Check yourself
before you
wreck yourself
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