Developer Week: Summary Day 3

It’s sad news, yes – Ubuntu Developer Week for the 12.04 cycle is over. It’s been three fantastic days full of action-packed sessions. If you couldn’t attend, check out the logs of the sessions, all of them are posted on the UDW page.

Here’s what happened on day 3, yesterday:

1. Fixing Desktop bugs — seb128Sébastien Bacher kicked off our last day. At first he took some time to explain how the Desktop team works and how they go about fixing bugs, then he took a quite recent example and explained how to work all the individual packaging bits to fix a Desktop bug in Ubuntu. For bonus points he explained how to get Wanda the Fish working in Ubuntu.
2. Triaging Desktop bugs — om26erNext up was Omer Akram, who first gave us an update about his personal life, then quickly dived into triaging bugs. He explained all the actors involved, what to bear in mind and general things to make sure when you are reviewing bug reports. Omer, who started out by triaging bugs himself, did a great job explaining how to get involved and why it’s so important.
3. Simple Lenses with Singlet — mhall119Michael Hall, an unstoppable force throughout UDW, provided a great session about how to write lenses for Unity using Singlet. For developers who have used Python in the past, this might be an even easier (and more pythonic way) to interact with Unity and Desktop bits.
4. Building locally with pbuilder — tumbleweed
   Those of you venturing into the land of Ubuntu development will have to deal with packaging and it’s good to do it in a safe, clean and reproducible manner. Stefano Rivera explained a lot of options for doing that including some advanced features useful if you want to debug builds. Great work.
5. Writing Crisp Changelogs — coolbhavi
   Again for those of you interested in package maintenance: it’s important to document your work properly. You don’t want anybody (including yourself) having to go back in a few months or years and dive into the archaelogy of a package to understand what exactly was changed and why. Bhavani Shankar shared his experience in writing crisp changelog entries.
6. Getting started with contributing to Ubuntu Documentation — jbicha
   The Ubuntu Documentation project is of vital importance to everyone who is new to Ubuntu. Also is it a great way to get involved with Ubuntu, as Jeremy Bicha showed. He explained how to the team works generally and how to actually go and contribute improvements.
7. Adding Ubuntu One to your applications — aquarius
   If you want to allow you application to sync data to the internet, it never was easier. Stuart Langridge showed and explained some easy examples which demoed how to tie in Ubuntu One services into your app.
8. Pair Programming and Code Review in the Cloud! — kirkland
   Dustin Kirkland did an impressive live demo of how to use EC2 to do pair programming, review of code and builds. He used tmux and byobu and explained in detail how to drive the infrastructure. Unfortunately the log is a bit colourless without the live demo right next to it.
9. Syncing your app data everywhere with U1DB — aquarius
   Nothing stops Stuart Langridge when he’s on a roll. He delivered his second session all about the new Ubuntu One Database. For those of you new to the initiative: “U1DB is for syncing data — that is, something structured — to every device you want”. The session is short, has lots of good information in it and a nice example of how to work with it.
10. Automated packaging with pkgme — james_w
    James Westby gave a great introduction to the pkgme project he has been working on and it’s fantastic to see that a lot of repetitive tasks are done by a tool. It was nice to see pkgme package itself. Give it a whirl and let James know how it works out for you.
11. Fixing internationalisation bugs — kelemengabor
    Gábor Kelemen is one of the heroes of Ubuntu’s internationalisation. Keeping all packages translatable and translations in shape matters deeply to him and he gave a nice overview over how common problems can easily be resolved. Köszönöm Gábor!
12. How to fix small bugs in Ubuntu — warp10
    Andrea Colangelo took over and quickly ran us through a couple of examples of fixed bugs and explained how exactly they were fixed. By the end of the session it was clear that in a lot of cases it’s no rocket science to go and fix a bug. Grazie mille, Andrea – I hope many will find your session as encouraging as we did.
13. Problem Lifecycle in Ubuntu — cprofitt
    Charles Profitt delivered the last session of the event and explained how all teams in Ubuntu work together to go from problem to solution, involving the lifecycle of a bug report, which was a big enough topic on its own already. Throughout the session he showed how you can join each of the teams and make a difference. Awesome!

What a fantastic day. Thanks a lot to all the speakers who made this Ubuntu Developer Week possible. Thanks a lot to everyone who attended as well. It was great to see a lot of interaction, questions and interest. Until next time! 🙂

Developer Week: Summary Day 2, Outlook Day 3

Day 2 of Ubuntu Developer Week is over and it was awesome! Logs up are up at the UDW page, so go and check them out if you couldn’t make it yesterday.

Let’s take a look at what happened yesterday:

1. Bringing your app to Ubuntu — dpm
   David Planella kicked of day 2 and gave a well-structured session about how to get your app into Ubuntu and managed to answer heaps and heaps of questions. If you missed the session, make sure you go back and read the log.
2. How to update a package to the latest upstream version in the repositories — coolbhavi
   Bhavani Shankar gave an excellent session about how to take an actual source package from Ubuntu and update it to a newer upstream release. He placed great importance on all the pitfalls and explained how to make sure it gets reviewed by our Ubuntu sponsors.
3. Ubuntu Technology overview — mhall119
   Indicators, lenses, scopes, APIs, Michael Hall got the best out of half an hour by explaining everything to tightly integrate your app or code in general with Ubuntu technologies. Great work.
4. Charming Juju — m_3
   Mark Mims was up next and talked about juju, a great way to deploy services in all kinds of scenarios. Unfortunately he struggled with his internet connection towards the beginning, but quickly found back into the session and explained the basics and how it works. Server admins: go and check it out.
5. Running the development release — Effenberg0x0 & Cariboo907

   If you always wanted to take a peek at the new development release but were afraid to do it, check out this great session by our dynamic duo Alvaro Leal and Jim Kielman. They quickly went through all the available options to do this in a safe manner, answered questions and mentioned this as a great way to play around with the new development release, to test it or to develop on it.

6. Working with Debian — tumbleweed

   Ubuntu is based on Debian and has a great relationship with it. Stefano Rivera took great care to explain why it is important we work closely, how to work with Debian maintainers and also where differences in the chosen infrastructure are. I was very pleased to see how much interest was in the session.

7. Ubuntu Distributed Development — barry

   Bazaar and Ubuntu Distributed Development have come a very way and nowadays make many many packaging and package maintenance tasks a lot easier. Barry Warsaw has been working closely with the Launchpad and Bazaar team, so he did a great job explaining how it all works and demo with a few examples how you can make use of it and how it can make your life easier.

8. Working in Debian — Laney

   Iain Lane basically started where Stefano Rivera’s session stopped earlier and talked about how to get things done in Debian. He showed how Debian’s instrastructure is used and who to talk to if you might ever get stuck. Awesome!

9. Starting with HTML/CSS — benonsoftware
   We mentioned it earlier already: Ben Donald-Wilson not only gave the session at 7:30 in the morning, but also on his birthday! We couldn’t find out if he had a long party before the session, but in any case it was an excellent session. With a small example he explained basics of HTML and CSS use. A great introduction who are new to the topic. Thanks again and happy birthday Ben!
10. Fixing small bugs in Unity — Trevinho and andyrock

    Italy took over the last session of the day and it was Marco Trevisan and Andrea Azzarone who brought a great introduction into making Unity even more awesome. Everything was covered here: what’s what, where to find simple tasks to work on, how to build it, how to debug it and much much more. Grazie mille guys!

What a lot of excellent content. What a huge amount of great people and great questions.

The good thing is, there’s more. Here’s what our last day has for you:

• 15:00 UTC: Fixing Desktop bugs — seb128
  You love the Ubuntu Desktop? Right you are. If you always wanted to be part of the Desktop team and help out, Sébastien Bacher has good news for you: it’s very easy to fix small bugs and be part of very diverse and fnu team.
• 15:30 UTC: Triaging Desktop bugs — om26er
  Omer Akram is up next and will make sure you find Desktop bugs to work on most easily. When looking at Desktop bugs there’s common things to look out for, there’s other projects to interact with and many more things to bear in mind. After this session it will be all clear to you.
• 16:00 UTC: Simple Lenses with Singlet — mhall119
  Do you like Unity Lenses? Learn how to use Singlet to create simple lenses to further enhance Unity. Michael Hall has been playing around with and can give you all the details.
• 16:30 UTC: Building locally with pbuilder — tumbleweed
  You have been compiling software before? Excellent. Watch Stefano Rivera’s session and see how you can build packages in a clean and safe environment very easily.
• 17:00 UTC: Writing Crisp Changelogs — coolbhavi
  In a software world with thousands of other developers, it’s important that you document your changes carefully. Bhavani Shankar will share his Dos and Don’ts with you.
• 17:30 UTC: Getting started with contributing to Ubuntu Documentation — jbicha
  Jeremy Bicha will introduce you to the Ubuntu Documentation project. A team full of unsung heroes who bring clean and crisp documentation to every single release. Join in for the fun and find out how to contribute.
• 18:00 UTC: Automated packaging with pkgme — james_w
  So you wrote an app and are afraid of packaging? Don’t worry, James Westby will be here to talk about pkgme and all the goodness it can do for you.
• 18:30 UTC: Pair Programming and Code Review in the Cloud! — kirkland
  Dustin Kirkland is up next and will show you ways in which you can collaborate most easily and directly. Stay tuned for a great session about pair programming and doing code review, in the cloud!
• 19:30 UTC: Adding Ubuntu One to your applications — aquarius
  Stuart Langridge doesn’t stop at the database side of things, he will also show you how to integrate this great service tightly into your app. Stop worrying about data storage, just do it.
• 20:00 UTC: Syncing your app data everywhere with U1DB — aquarius
  The Ubuntu One team has lots of experience with syncing terrabytes of data across devices. U1DB is here to make data syncing for app easier. Stuart Langridge will show you how.
• 20:30 UTC: Fixing internationalisation bugs — kelemengabor
  Gábor Kelemen is an expert, when it comes to internationalisation or short i18n. Sometimes problems in the code prevent the software to be translatable. He Gábor will go through a list of common mistakes and show you how to fix them.
• 21:00 UTC: How to fix small bugs in Ubuntu — warp10
  Andrea Colangelo and his friends from the Italian Ubuntu developer team will be here to pick a few examples of fixed bugs and give you the blow-by-blow analysis about how it was done. Join in to start your bug fixing story today.
• 21:30 UTC: Problem Lifecycle in Ubuntu — cprofitt
  We have to face the reality. Software comes with problems, call them bugs or defects, they are still there. Charles Profitt will be here to explain the common lifecycle of a bug report in Ubuntu and how they are dealt with.

Have a great time! 🙂

Developer Week: Summary Day 1, Outlook Day 2

Day 1 of Ubuntu Developer Week is over and what a fantastic day it was. Logs up are up at the UDW page, so go and check them out if you couldn’t make it yesterday.

Let’s take a look at what happened yesterday:

1. Introduction to Ubuntu development — dholbach
   Around 340 people showed up for the session and we had a great time together. Lots of very sharp questions were asked and lots of excitement about Ubuntu in general, but also development in particular. Check it out if you are interested in the topic as well.
2. Getting set up for Ubuntu development — dholbach
   Daniel explained how to install all the necessary tools, how to set them up and how to connect yourself with Launchpad. We got through all of the instructions in a breeze and still had time for heaps of questions. Excellent!
3. Ubuntu Technology overview — mhall119
   Indicators, lenses, scopes, APIs, Michael Hall got the best out of half an hour by explaining everything to tightly integrate your app or code in general with Ubuntu technologies. Great work.
4. What’s new in Edubuntu — highvoltage
   Jonathan Carter gave a fun session about Edubuntu, the Ubuntu flavour for schools. Its history, where it’s different from standard Desktop Ubuntu, what’s new and what makes it a fun project to work on.
5. Ubuntu TV – what’s what — Saviq & mhall119
   As expected this session got lots and lots of questions. Read the log for yourself, if you are interested in Ubuntu on TVs – Michał Sawicz and Michael Hall gave a great overview over how it works and answers almost all the questions you might have yourself. 🙂
6. Testability and Qt – Intro to automated UX testing for Qt apps — greyback
   Do you like the feeling of having your code covered and a good feeling about how well it works? You do UI development and use Qt? Check out this session because Gerry Bolland went into great detail about how to even test User Experience aspects through automated tests.
7. Unity Lenses! — davidcalle & mhr3
   You could see that David Callé and Michal Hruby put quite a bit of effort into this session. They put together a bunch of examples together on how you can add great content to Unity’s Lenses with  little amount of work. Go check it out, you’re going to love it.
8. QA: Automated Testing and Jenkins — hggdh
   Carlos de Avillez was up next and talked us through Ubuntu’s automated testing infrastructure. The session was well done and explained everything in great detail. As Ubuntu is putting more and more energy into testing and general QA, this was a great session to get started with testing and making use of the infrastructure.
9. Packaging Do’s and Don’ts — SpamapS
   Clint Byrum shared his wealth of experience in a nicely condensed session with lots of good information and at the same time answered lots of questions. Great work!
10. Incorporating upstream changes in Ubuntu — cyphermox
    The last session of the day was all about cooperation between Ubuntu and upstreams and how and when to import fixes from Upstream. Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre presented a lot of excellent examples to fix bugs, which should be a great starting point for everyone who wants to improve Ubuntu and work well with other projects.

What a lot of excellent content. What a huge amount of great people and great questions.

The good thing is, there’s more. Here’s what day 2 has for us:

• 15:00 UTC: Bringing your app to Ubuntu — dpm
  To bring your software into Ubuntu, you historically had to work very closely with the Ubuntu developers to make it part of the platform. With the new Ubuntu App Developer Programme this has gotten easier and David Planella has all the details for you.
• 16:00 UTC: How to update a package to the latest upstream version in the repositories — coolbhavi
  Ubuntu is interested in representing the great work which other projects have done. As part of this effort, we update to new versions of their software regularly. Bhavani Shankar will demonstrate how this is done in the easiest fashion.
• 17:00 UTC: Charming Juju — m_3
  Deploying services is hard, right? Mark Mims will show you the opposite. As part of his work on Juju he has solved many of the common problems and deploying services into whatever scenario you have has become a breeze. This session will show you how to write charms for Juju.
• 18:00 UTC: Running the development release — Effenberg0x0 & Cariboo907
  Afraid of running the development release and running into problems all the time? There’s no reason for this: Alvaro Leal and Jim Kielman will show you the alternatives for trying out the latest development release in a safe environment. This is a great way to experience the newest Ubuntu, test it and develop on it.
• 18:30 UTC: Working with Debian — tumbleweed
  Debian is the most important upstream project we work with. Stefano Rivera has long been involved in both Debian and Ubuntu. This means that he can easily show you how you can most easily work on Ubuntu and make sure that both projects benefit.
• 19:00 UTC: Ubuntu Distributed Development — barry
  The Open Source world is complicated. There’s thousands of projects with lots of contributors. There’s different development focuses, different timelines and goals. To not get confused and still get our work done, we use Ubuntu Distributed Development, which makes merging changes very easy. Barry Warsaw will take you on a ride.
• 20:00 UTC: Working in Debian — Laney
  To make Ubuntu benefit from your code, it is sometimes the best to get your contribution into Debian first. Iain Lane has worked in both Debian and Ubuntu and give you the details on how it all works.
• 20:30 UTC: Starting with HTML/CSS — benonsoftware
  Ben Donald-Wilson is a hero. For this session he will not only get up very early, but it’s also his birthday. Talk about dedication! Attend this session for sharing your birthday wishes and also get an introduction on using HTML and CSS. Awesome!
• 21:00 UTC: Fixing small bugs in Unity — Trevinho and andyrock
  The last session of the day will be held by two Italian guys who worked on Unity a lot, Andrea Azzarone and Marco Trevisan. If you always wanted to get involved in making Unity even better, attend this session and learn how to fix small bugs.

Everyone: enjoy it! 🙂