I learned about them in my Peer to Peer University course when I did the Ruby Koans. They were pretty easy and fun.

I’ve been constructing a JavaScript course and thought using koans for that would be really helpful for students. I grabbed a fork of “JavaScript Koans.” Pretty easy, but I have to flip back and forth between a text editor and the browser to see how I did. With the Ruby Koans, it was all in one screen since it was using a command line interface.

I’ve recently been in love with LiveReload. When you edit a file in a directory, it will reload the HTML file automatically in the browser. No tabbing over and hitting reload or command-R.

Here’s my visual setup. My browser is on the left and my text editor is on the right.

I have LiveReload running and have it pointing to watch the whole Koans directory so that it will see whenever I change one of the JavaScript files. It then reloads the KoansRunner file which shows me my progress. In order to get LiveReload to refresh that file, I put in a snippet of code in the bottom of the HTML file which LiveReload gives you.

tl;dr:

Basically, it’s a reminder that those of us that contribute to open source are people.

Longer story:

Here’s what I’ve gathered.

Wayne Seguin made rvm, a way to manage Ruby versions on your box. Sam Stephenson made rbenv, a way to manage Ruby versions on your box.

There was discussion on Hacker News which has some complementary praise for rbenv in varying levels of positiveness.

Wayne Seguin read it and reacted on Twitter at 9:30 a.m. on August 12.

Sam Stephenson asked “Why do open-source programmers take things so personally?”on Twitter at 11:07 a.m. and “You can’t make progress in an environment where egos are more important than ideas.” at 11:12 a.m.

Wayne Seguin responded to the question about why we’re taking things so personally with: “@sstephenson because we’re all persons.” at 1:14 p.m.

I don’t know either of them, and kind of feel like I missed something somewhere. However, I definitely read some hurt feelings there. That’s pretty obvious, right?

Now what?

I’m all about lessons learned. I am someone who enjoys contributing to open source and spends a great deal of my free time doing just that. What can I take from this recent demonstration of a facet of open source?

“Thank you.” Yes. “We’re all persons.” I try to remember that whenever dealing with new contributors. I don’t have a lot of free time but really try to help the person debug his or her environment to get it running, and figure out a good first bug if the person doesn’t have one picked already. I also thank the person for the time put in, though I am not perfect and do forget sometimes.

“Constructive criticism.” I also remember the first time a chunk of my code was rewritten without telling me why. I figured it out but would have liked to have been pinged to fix it myself via constructive criticism. Speaking of criticism, I also try to remember that sometimes we require a thick skin when putting our code and ourselves “out there.” At work, we do code reviews and have to remember that it’s the code being picked apart, not us. It’s probably a little easier there, though, because I know all of my coworkers and how they say things. But, that new person on IRC that’s criticizing how I did something? No.

“Respect diversity.” I sometimes let people assume I’m male on IRC. Why? Because I don’t want to deal with the “omg, ur a girl????” Then, sometimes I make sure it’s known because someone I respect very much reminded me that new women to open source might not realize that we’re here and available to mentor them. I find that I correct more often than not now though with time. Also, diversity isn’t just about gender. There might culture, language, or more barriers we need to overcome in order to contribute and work together.

I’ve seen quite a few blog posts about how to survive (and thrive) in open source. Still, it’s all very personal. “We’re all persons.” So true, Mr. Seguin. So true.

Since finishing my Master’s, I have been looking for “what’s next.” I wanted to do some adjunct work but with travel it’s difficult to do — unless I did it online. So, when I heard about P2PU, I figured that could be a great “what’s next” for me.

Last year, when I heard about them, I first lurked on the mailing lists, and then, because I joined after the deadline to create classes, I signed up in January for some web topics. I still have some sketches for classes I’d like to create because I <3 teaching and learning. Plus, it’s open source and I <3 that too!

I’ve gone from lurking to contributing on a few levels. I not only have finished as a student in a few courses like Ruby on Rails but also created a study group on how to contribute to the code behind the P2PU platform. I also joined the community phone calls when I could and it really helped me “catch up” and see where the project came from and where it was going. Thankfully, they’re around my lunch break so that I can participate.

My time with P2pU has given me lots of growth opportunities, expanded my social (and professional) network, and created a billion blog post ideas. (I even signed up for a blogging and writing study group to help get some of the ideas from my brain onto the Intarwebs.)

But, for now, I have some homework to do in my Django class.

Care to join me? It’s fun and free.

P.S. More about my experiences with P2PU are available via a recent interview by Stefanie Panke.

Contributors come in all shapes and sizes. Even though the gathering of those involved with Ubuntu is called the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS), it’s not just those that develop code. And the next UDS is May 9-13, 2011 in Budapest, Hungary.

I’m still growing and finding my way in Ubuntu so attended last cycle’s summit remotely. I was really impressed. I already knew the community rocked, but the idea of being able to participate from afar was fantastic. Then I saw that the Community Manager, Jono Bacon, contacted the Ubuntu Women team to make the next UDS even better through diversity. Very nice.

Recently, I watched a presentation about gender distribution in Ruby by Dave Thomas. It illustrated how few women are involved in Ruby and open source. He said that about 47% of the working population are women, and 25% of those that work in computing/mathematics are women. Then, narrowing down further, there are 1.5% women in open source and about 5.6% women attended the conference.

I’m not sure how many women are involved with Ubuntu, but at least 5% of those that have gained membership (a recognition of contribution that one needs to apply for), are women. It’s not 47% but it’s higher than the normal percentage of women in open source.

Alright. Enough with the statistics. What I’m getting at is this: Ubuntu does it right. How can it be even better? For more of the underrepresented community members of Ubuntu to go to the summit. Fortunately, Canonical offers sponsorships for some. And you won’t know if you can get it till you apply.

Why should you apply for sponsorship?

• You’ve been contributing to Ubuntu in some form (not just coding but also community like local teams, design, testing, etc.)
• New this year: an anti-harassment policy (which I hope adds sexual orientation/identity)
• Put faces to the names you’ve seen on mailing lists, forums, and IRC
• There’s sponsorship application help for women by the Ubuntu Women project

I suggest that if you’re interested in applying for sponsorship that you do so soon, especially if you need to get a passport and such!

Here’s to a wonderfully productive, fun, and diverse summit!

1. No time. I can’t attend all conferences. I only have so much time off from work. Is it just me or do most Linux conferences focus on weekends? Some conferences I would love to attend are during the week (Monday – Thursday, for example.) I realize this is probably because companies are paying for employees to go to those. However, not all of us have that. If the conference is far away then that adds more to the time constraint.
2. No money. Like I said, work doesn’t pay for all these conferences I go to so I have to think of the wallet. Some Linux conferences are $1000 less than the other conferences I’m interested in. Example: JavaOne is $1395. And, yes, it’s a weekday one though its weekday begins on Sunday. Ohio LinuxFest is $0 – $350 and Friday-Sunday. That’s why I absolutely love programming and usability sessions at OS conferences.
3. Too many people. Though officially I test either extrovert or introvert depending on the day, the thought of entering a huge room full of people is a bit overwhelming at times. Yes, I admit it. Sometimes, it’s hard to get over that.
4. Not enough people. On the other hand, if it’s a conference that is too small for networking and learning, then it’s best to skip it.
5. Not organized well. If I don’t see an agenda at least 3 weeks in advance, I’m much less likely to go even if it’s only a five hour drive away. Also, I like to see things like speaker bios and a well-thought-out website. It probably means the actual conference is well planned.

Have some other reasons? Please list them! Also, if you have some conferences I should attend, I’d love to hear them!

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