Hackathons
I have mixed feelings about the Umbraco hackathons that I've attended. I mean I enjoy hanging out with other developers but I've rarely got anything done in the Hackathon. My process tends to be:
- Pick up and issue to work on.
- Spend an hour or two investigating.
- Discover it's massively more complicated than anticipated.
- Realise that's why nobody else has done it yet.
- Leave a comment for the next person about what I discovered.
- Go back to step 1
The few exceptions to this has been when there is a new release of Umbraco just about out, then there are a bunch of small issues that need doing and you stand a chance of finding one you can meaningfully work on in a few hours.
This go me thinking about new ways of structuring the hackathon....
Packages
At the same time another train of thought has been going on in my head. Umbraco has been growing. Fast. To do that they've been recruiting a lot of developers. A good chunk of those developers have come from the Umbraco community. That makes sense because they're already familiar with the product, they know the brand, they know the company ethos. It's a no brainer for them. However it leaves the community with a bit of an issue. These were the developers doing contributions and making packages. Prolific package creators like Lee Kelleher and Matt Brailsford are now full time at Umbraco.
So how do we go about cultivating the next generation of package creators...
My idea is to turn the hackathon at UmbracoSpark, for this year at least, into a package themed hackathon. We'll focus everyone who is up for it at the hackathon into the idea of creating a package. For a lot of people the thing that has stopped them writing a package has been getting started. It's daunting just writing a package from scratch, where do you start? Inevitably the documentation, but the examples in documentation is always a bit limited. You've got this grand idea but it feels like a mountain to climb to actually realise it. For other people it's coming up with the idea that's the problem. You have all this technical know-how, but can't think how to apply it. How about we bring these people together to make some great new packages.
This will need some structure, and I got thinking. In the game dev community there is this thing called a GameJam.
Game jams are accelerated game development events where participants make a game in a short amount of time - an hour to a day to a week or more
So how about we do a PackageJam? Same concept, but creating packages instead of games. We're doing a bit of prep for this, so developers taking part will turn up at the hackathon already with a package idea, a team they're going to work with (1-3 developers) and a starter package which covers the basics.
Bringing it all together
The last issue we've always had with Spark was how to end the day, it felt a bit unnecessary to drag everyone together at the end for a few closing remarks. Everyone at that point just wants to get home, or to the socials or maybe just some food.
So how do we end UmbracoSpark with a bang...
Codegarden always used to have this package award session on a Friday, it was super informal, each presenter had 5 minutes to haul their laptop to the front, get it working with the screen and present their package. At the end the audience voted for their favourite. Some packages were great, some were super niche and some where silly. It was a fun way to spend a bit of time.
This year we're bringing that back at Spark. Packages made duing the PackageJam will be presented at the end and the most promising package(s) will get an award. The packages don't have to be complete, they could just be a proof of concept or a prototype. It'll be right at the end of the day, and very informal.
If you'd like to take part, get in touch with us at umbracospark@gibedigital.com or sign up at the meetup page
