May 11, 2012 | 12 Comments
I’m looking for a term to describe small positive actions that individuals do to add up to a greater whole. Examples in the world of open source software might include: Answering a question on a mailing list Testing a beta … Continue reading
April 27, 2012 | 7 Comments
I often get surprise patches in my projects from people I’ve never heard from. I’m not talking about things like fixing typos, or fixing a bug in the bug tracker. I’m talking about new features, handed over fully-formed. Unfortunately, it’s … Continue reading
January 23, 2012 | 4 Comments
In her fantastic book Bossypants, Tina Fey has a sidebar about how improvisational comedy has changed her life, and given her a new worldview. We in open source would do well to adapt these ideas to how we conduct our … Continue reading
November 2, 2011 | 2 Comments
By Mark Jason Dominus, from a talk in 2003, reprinted here with permission. Sadly, it’s still relevant today. The #perl IRC channel has a big problem. People come in asking questions, say, “How do I remove the first character from … Continue reading
October 10, 2011 | 0 comments
Ever since we got the fast new database server with SSDs, I’ve been monitoring which tables are getting heavy traffic and should go live on the SSDs. We have two tablespaces, “fast” which is faster but smaller, and “slow” which … Continue reading
October 10, 2011 | 2 Comments
Who says you’re not a genius? Who are any of us to say? And why would anyone bother telling someone that? In my last blog post, I talked about how it was unnecessary and counterproductive to justify your projects to … Continue reading
October 6, 2011 | 8 Comments
Here’s a Reddit/Slashdot/whatever thread that never happened: Internet crank on Reddit: “Hey, Steve Jobs, I guess that new iPad looks cool, but I think iPad is a stupid name, it makes me think of sanitary napkins.” Steve: “Yeah, well, here’s … Continue reading
September 20, 2011 | 1 Comment
Finally, two months after OSCON 2011, here’s a dump of my notes from the more tech-heavy sessions I attended. Some of it is narrative, and some of it is just barely-formatted notes. The target here is my own use of … Continue reading
August 31, 2011 | 2 Comments
On Saturday, September 3rd I’ll be presenting “Building and Managing a Project Community with Github” at ArchReactor, a hackerspace in St. Louis, MO. ArchReactor Jefferson Underground Building 2400 South Jefferson Avenue St. Louis, MO 63104 http://archreactor.org/location There will be a … Continue reading
August 24, 2011 | 6 Comments
Gina Trapani started a Google+ thread about using Github as a portfolio of your work to show potential employers. This in turn was prompted by a blog post by PyDanny titled “Github is my resume.” It’s a great idea, but … Continue reading