Ubuntu Developer Week – Summary Day 1, Outlook Day 2

Day 1 of Ubuntu Developer Week is over – it was brilliant. Lots of people, last I looked it was close to 300 and many many excellent questions. Here’s a quick run through the sessions we had yesterday:

• Introduction to Ubuntu development – The even was started by Daniel Holbach, who gave a one-hour introduction to Ubuntu development. Many of the things you need to understand first were discussed, but lots more as well. Especially the Q&A parts are an interesting read.
• Getting set up for Ubuntu development – After a very short break, just enough to get a cup of tea, the session continued and we talked about all the tools a developer typically needs and how to set them up properly. This as well raised many good questions. Reading through the log you can get a sense for how our attendees were interested in getting started.
• Something about ARM – Oliver Grawert was up next and started off with a brief history of how the efforts around ARM evolved in Ubuntu. The rest of the session was very much about questions and answers and by getting through them all, it was very easy to understand how busy a place ARM in Ubuntu is.
• Ubuntu Development for the Youth – Bilal Akhtar gave an excellent session about contributing to Ubuntu and answered many very common questions and was able to put many minds at ease. If you should be still unsure about Ubuntu development and if it’s a good idea to get involved, read the session log.
• Using and porting to Python3 – Barry Warsaw could have filled three hours about Python3 without problems. The session was very interesting as he managed to highlight both challenges with porting from 2 to 3, but also what we have to gain.

Very soon we will kick off day 2 which has this for us in store:

1. 15:00 UTC: Introduction to Quickly – Michael Terry is one of the people behind Quickly, so he’s a pretty good person to get you started writing your first app for Ubuntu. Prepare yourself for a pleasant journey towards your first app.
2. 16:00 UTC: Getting help to start with Ubuntu Development – The developer advisory team and beyond – Bhavani Shankar has been part of Ubuntu Development for a very long time and part of the Developer Advisory Team for almost all of its lifetime. Join his session for an overview of what the DAT is doing and some tips to get started.
3. 17:00 UTC: Fixing small bugs and forwarding the patches upstream – Stefano Rivera is both, an Ubuntu and a Debian developer, and has contributed to both for an extended period of time. He’d love you to help fix small bugs in both, so join in, ask your questions and get involved.
4. 18:00 UTC: libmessagingmenu – libmessagingmenu is one of the key components on the Ubuntu Desktop and Lars Übernickel a person who knows everything about it. His session will give you a good idea how it works and how to integrate with it easily.
5. 19:00 UTC: Ubuntu Juju Tips and Tricks –  juju has taken the DevOps world by storm, because it was never easier to massage your knowledge about the deployment and administration of services into charms and to administer many many systems very easily. Mark Mims will be here to tell us more about it.

As you can see, we brought together all kinds of Ubuntu developers to give you a taster of the richness of our community. Tell your friends and bring them and your questions. Join in!