We publish here the chat log from our last "Ask The Joomla Team" Session.
Next Session will be happen on 16th June 2010 20 UTC with Jacques Rentzke and Andrew Eddie.
How Can You Join Ask the Joomla Team
You can meet us in the #joomla-ask-the-team chat room on irc.freenode.net
One very easy way to join is to visit this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#joomla-ask-the-team
Chat log
07:06:17 <elinw> morning everyone, sorry, windows insisted on running chkdsk
07:06:20 <elinw> :P
07:07:17 <elinw> well here I am ready for ask the team and hoping Sam wakes up too :)
07:15:05 <elinw> well if anyone wants to say hi just type elinw hi to get my attention
07:15:36 <rvsjoen> hi
07:15:39 <elinw> :)
07:16:34 <elinw> how are you today and where are you from?
07:16:58 <rvsjoen> i'm good, can't complain, from norway
07:17:16 <rvsjoen> subversion is getting on my last nerve, but we need some challenges, eh
07:17:27 <elinw> were you at the Joomla Day? I heard great things
07:17:45 <elinw> yeah subversion is always challenging
07:17:56 <rvsjoen> unfortunately not, I work in switzerland, it's too far to travel :)
07:18:05 <elinw> Too bad
07:18:53 <elinw> Angie told me she gave a 4 hour workshop on Beez2
07:19:02 <rvsjoen> sounds nice
07:19:07 <elinw> I hope they put the video up
07:21:11 <elinw> How are you liking the bug squad? And I hope people reading this will think about popping into the JBS
07:21:56 <rvsjoen> so far so good, haven't had that much time to adapt yet, and still working out the best way to navigate the tracker :)
07:22:11 <elinw> which is always open and at #joomla-bug-squad (a little advertising)
07:22:25 <elinw> I can tell you what I do
07:22:44 <rvsjoen> sure
07:23:29 <elinw> Well, my main thing is tracker team so first, I always check for new items and then recently modified items.
07:23:39 <elinw> I do that by sorting by status and date
07:24:44 <elinw> And then I try to make sure the status is accurate and also the category, because a lot of times people don't realize something is a template issue or a library one, just as examples.
07:25:25 <elinw> Also, it helps that I've read all the issues because I can usually spot duplicates
07:25:32 <rvsjoen> true
07:26:52 <elinw> Then sometimes if there seems to be a common thread, I'll put a tag in the summary, like I did for all the MySQL strict issues that I found.
07:27:04 <Little^John> vack
07:27:06 <Little^John> *b
07:27:11 <elinw> hi
07:27:26 <Little^John> hi
07:27:29 <elinw> Right now I think the jbs is doing an amazing job with the tracker
07:27:44 <Little^John> gotta get rid of a sandwich adn then I have some questions :P
07:27:47 <elinw> I was away for a few days last week and I came back and there were 0 opens
07:27:50 <elinw> ok
07:28:21 <rvsjoen> yeah, I was surprised by the number of open tickets as well
07:29:13 <elinw> It's really nice, and I think it is encouraging for people when their issues are processed quickly, or at least they start being processed.
07:29:24 <rvsjoen> very
07:29:31 <elinw> In the run up to 1.5 I felt issues took too long so people stopped reporting
07:30:46 <elinw> Also, the coordinators have been doing a good job of getting things committed
07:31:42 <elinw> Still room for more public code review, that's the one area of good practice we are not succeeding at as well as I think we should.
07:31:49 <Little^John> ah, that was great. Rdy now
07:31:51 <elinw> Because it doesn't help people learn
07:32:12 <elinw> I like JBS because I learn a lot about best practices
07:32:17 <elinw> ok
07:32:28 <rvsjoen> it's a very good place to start I think
07:32:36 <elinw> yes
07:32:56 <elinw> You learn about the whole codebase too
07:33:44 <elinw> ok
07:33:49 <Little^John> So, elinw, you wrote a blog post some time ago, where you looked for solutions to oss funding (good post btw). Did you find any 'solutions' or good approaches?
07:34:31 <elinw> well it's my belief that Joomla! is a very unusual project an ecosystem and thtat we will not end up looking exactly like any other project.
07:34:42 <elinw> That's mainly because we are a small business ecosystem
07:34:54 <elinw> So, say Apache
07:35:20 <elinw> Google, IBM and Oracle basically can fund numerous people to work full time on Apache
07:35:41 <elinw> But the typical Joomla! firm cannot do that, they are usually just getting by
07:35:52 <elinw> maybe the biggest ones have 30 employees
07:36:03 <elinw> many many many have just 1-5
07:36:15 <elinw> and they are all needed working on the firm's direct work.
07:36:35 <elinw> So I don't think that model will work
07:37:05 <elinw> There are a lot of good working approaches out there that we can kind of borrow from
07:37:14 <elinw> but it will end up with a unique structure
07:37:27 <Little^John> To get more "hands" in the development?
07:37:31 <elinw> Actually in the research we did, no two projects were alike
07:37:41 <elinw> well to support all aspects of the project
07:37:50 <elinw> On the dev side specifically
07:38:01 <Little^John> Okay
07:38:12 <elinw> there are some approaches
07:38:22 <elinw> although of course dev is just one part of running an open source project
07:38:34 <elinw> so we're lucky to have Rochen do our hosting
07:38:54 <elinw> Most projects spend tons of money on hosting and hardware related to that
07:39:08 <elinw> So, again, something special about us
07:39:19 <elinw> So in terms of hands in dev
07:40:01 <elinw> The main thing is ... i hear over and over from companies that they do not have the resources to assign people to work even 2 days or one ay a week on core developemnt
07:40:19 <Little^John> Yeah, can imagine that
07:40:30 <elinw> Something else interesting
07:40:51 <elinw> I'm always saying, hey if you make a performance improvement for a client .... contribute it
07:41:00 <elinw> And people tell me that isn't happening much
07:41:45 <elinw> So maybe some of the frustration we feel when we don't see things like that coming in is really not based on reality ... perhaps people really aren't holding back
07:41:59 <elinw> It's just not happening and when it does we see it
07:42:01 <AmyStephen> elin - when Nicholas issued a call for help for JoomlaForward within 24 hours, he had over 50 responses of community willing to help 5 hours, or more, a week
07:42:18 <AmyStephen> it takes a lot of time to train and help encourage involvement
07:42:29 <AmyStephen> but i see the community wanting very much to be involved
07:42:30 <elinw> Well we certainy givee a lot of encouragement
07:42:37 <elinw> an widely advertise the opportunitioes
07:42:57 <elinw> And even give opportunities for sponsorship based on time commitments
07:43:03 <elinw> I hope those people do show up
07:43:12 <AmyStephen> i agree - we can still do a lot more to make it easy to know what you have to do to get involved
07:43:17 <AmyStephen> they do show up elin
07:43:23 <elinw> Well as I said in New Englad
07:43:33 <elinw> All you have to o is look at the joomla.org front page
07:43:45 <elinw> How to get involve is all over it
07:43:59 <AmyStephen> well - what we did was put together step by step instructions
07:44:01 <elinw> But I'm looking forward to seeing all this work on the tracker
07:44:06 <AmyStephen> that's what people need
07:44:14 <elinw> Yeah we have a great wiki
07:44:26 <AmyStephen> and they published this now in the bug squad in people
07:44:27 <elinw> And feel free to add any advice to the dev pages
07:44:34 <elinw> good
07:44:40 <AmyStephen> we did add a number of wiki pages for various tools
07:44:43 <elinw> good
07:44:44 <AmyStephen> and also created video
07:45:04 <AmyStephen> it's like anything else, it's easy to do once you know how to do it! lol
07:45:05 <elinw> that's what you dp
07:45:08 <elinw> hou show up
07:45:13 <elinw> and do the work
07:45:15 <AmyStephen> but when you are on the outside of our very big project
07:45:19 <elinw> you know the saying
07:45:23 <elinw> 90% of life is showing up
07:45:25 <AmyStephen> it's not always easy to know how to get involved
07:45:26 <elinw> I believe that
07:45:34 <Little^John> I think its interesting to discuss of 2 reasons...
07:45:40 <elinw> You just walk in and don't create imaginary arriers where there are none
07:46:04 <Little^John> 1) I see how my own company (and others) neglect to support the community even though they could
07:46:21 <elinw> ok
07:46:54 <elinw> and 2?
07:47:20 <Little^John> 2) I might (at some point) find myself in a dilemma wanting to contribute, but not be able to (due to either employment where support is not prioritized, or due to no employment (needing to get work to pay the bills))
07:47:31 <elinw> right
07:47:38 <elinw> and this is the challenge for everyone
07:48:22 <elinw> So, what we need to understand that people can mainly do small, intermittent ibts
07:48:40 <elinw> even when people commit to time, there will be weeks or months when they have big projects
07:48:51 <elinw> that take them away
07:48:59 <elinw> or maye family things or life in general
07:49:06 <Little^John> Yes, excactly.
07:49:12 <elinw> So, in open source ... the cool thing is you can do that
07:49:22 <elinw> that you can put in the occasional patch
07:49:44 <elinw> or come in and just work on a problem that interests you or that solves a prolem you come up against working on a project
07:49:57 <elinw> The thing is to remember to put that in to the community
07:50:18 <elinw> Not everyone has to do huge locks of weekly time
07:50:35 <elinw> if you write a library that does somethign for you that others might find helpful
07:50:37 <elinw> share it
07:50:45 <elinw> ask for a branch
07:50:58 <elinw> let other people work on it if you are done workign on it
07:51:11 <elinw> or put in a patch and then post to list
07:51:23 <elinw> I see people like Omar do that pretty regularly
07:52:03 <elinw> I think that's pretty typical that in terms of numbers, the larger number of people will be more intermittent
07:52:42 <Little^John> Imo, that approach still misses out a lot of people/work
07:52:44 <elinw> Then the second largest are pretty regular, doing stuff, testing
07:53:10 <elinw> and then the smallest group will be the ones who are doing several days a week or more
07:53:22 <Little^John> it takes very much time to get into the J!world and without some kind of accept from the companies people work (develop) at, very many will fail to do contribute I think
07:53:46 <AmyStephen> Here's that resource to help those interested get started http://people.joomla.org/groups/viewbulletin/190-Move+Joomla+Forward+with+Bug+Squad+Involvement.html?groupid=95
07:53:47 <jools> Title: Move Joomla! Forward with Bug Squad Involvement (at people.joomla.org)
07:53:56 <elinw> I think ... well we all depend on Apache and PH but when is the last time we put work in there?
07:54:18 <Little^John> (amy, btw, have been around in the Joomla world since march and have not seen joomlaforward yet) :)
07:54:20 <AmyStephen> ask questions too! people will help you - no one wants to feel stupid or get in the way - but all of us started - and people are very helpful and patient
07:54:27 <elinw> The truth is in every no nprofit kind of venture I've been involved in, only about 10% ever contriute actively
07:54:30 <elinw> right
07:54:58 <AmyStephen> the team leads are helpful - elin - did you want to share what the teams are in the squad?
07:55:06 <elinw> So we want always to be welcoming and positive and patient, but it's not useful to get upset
07:55:12 <elinw> sure
07:55:42 <elinw> So, in JBS Mark an Ian and Andrew came up with 5 teams, all of which are important.
07:56:17 <elinw> Rememering that JBS is not really about original coding, so it's just one part of things
07:56:30 <elinw> Ok so the first team is the Tracker team
07:56:43 <elinw> Which is my team, an we 'work the tracker"
07:57:10 <elinw> which is what I was talking about earlier. Making sure issues are responded to and categorized correctly etc
07:57:33 <elinw> And we are working hard to make sure nothing stays in open status more than 2 days
07:57:44 <elinw> Then there is the Coding team
07:58:07 <elinw> And they actually solve the problems by analyzing them and creating patches
07:58:17 <elinw> Then we have two testing teams
07:58:20 <AmyStephen> (elin is the tracker team lead - and she has a TON of experience/great knowledge)
07:58:33 <elinw> The automated team and the manual team
07:59:00 <elinw> So of course we all want more automated testing, and Mark is doing a webinar on that tomorrow
07:59:16 <elinw> Because ideally every issue comes with a test
07:59:32 <elinw> And the manual team actually tests the patches in the real world
07:59:54 <elinw> An that's really really important, and especially if you hae an unusual environment
08:00:08 <elinw> like reverse proxy or zeus server or something
08:00:09 <AmyStephen> ( announcement on webinar for testing by mark dexter http://groups.google.com/group/joomlabugsquad/msg/2775a65ddbb0c622?hl=en&dmode=source )
08:00:10 <jools> Title: Webinar: System Testing Part 1 - Joomla! bug Squad | Google Groups (at groups.google.com)
08:00:23 <elinw> that's a great thing to be workign on
08:00:40 <elinw> some tests are simple, like just fixing a typo but some require a lot of work
08:00:48 <elinw> Oh the 5th team
08:00:53 <elinw> Migration script
08:00:59 <elinw> REALLY important
08:01:24 <elinw> That's by far the most serious release candidat blocker that I see
08:01:32 <elinw> Just my opnion
08:01:46 <elinw> But as a user it's pretty vital
08:02:11 <Little^John> Oh very! :)
08:02:13 <AmyStephen> lol - agree.
08:02:22 <elinw> So if there are people reading this that want to work on that, we're really looking for help
08:03:57 <elinw> I do think ... well people asked me about this at the JDay New ENgland, that the data ase changes are ... not too too hard
08:05:22 <elinw> Mainly taking sections, putting them as top level categories, the ACL and also a few other things like the extensions table
08:06:16 <AmyStephen> looks like it's past the hour - thanks for your time, elin! nice to see all those joomlachix at Joomla Day New England - WTG Jen Kramer and crew!
08:06:28 <elinw> There are enough site administrators active on the dev lists that the developers hear .. what doees that mean for migration all the time
08:06:34 <elinw> Yes it was great
08:06:47 <elinw> And a great bug squash on SUnday
08:06:56 <AmyStephen> saw that - very nice!
08:07:01 <Little^John> Thanks for the sharing of info on those great matters
08:07:05 <elinw> Yes, I actually have a 9:15 appointment
08:07:17 <elinw> Thanks for coming!
08:07:31 <elinw> It's a very exciting time
08:07:32 <Little^John> This ask the team is really a good idea, just sorry to see so few people here :)
08:07:37 <AmyStephen> thanks for sharing your knowledge!
08:07:48 <elinw> yeah, well i wish Sam woke up!
08:08:17 <elinw> I think it's a great thing too, thanks to Roert D. for thinking of it
08:09:01 <elinw> Ok I'm going to shut down now and go to my appointment, thanks everyone.
