Ubuntu Developer Week is over – thanks everyone

Thanks a lot to all the presenters at Ubuntu Developer Week! Thanks a lot also to everyone who joined the sessions and who helped set them up. This UDW was another great success. We had up to 300 people sessions around at peak times, lots of great questions and lots of excitement. It’s events like this where you can get a better sense how Ubuntu development works, can see Open Source development in action and get to know the people.

All the logs of the sessions are now available from the Ubuntu Developer Week page. Thanks again everyone!

Here’s a run through the sessions of the last day:

• Getting started with app development and Intro to translations in Ubuntu – David Planella talked about two topics very close to his heart, Apps in Ubuntu and Translations in Ubuntu. Within 30 minutes each, he managed to give a nice overview and also to address all incoming questions.
• Adding test cases with UTAH and Q&A about test automation  – UTAH is the Ubuntu Test Automation Harness and Gema Gomez-Solano explained in quite some detail how it works and why this changes how we put Ubuntu together a lot. She also explained how to get involved by adding new test-cases. Please have a look at the logs and help out!
• Getting started with Ubuntu WebApps – Alex Launi and Alex Abreu did a great job explaining how Ubuntu WebApps works and how to get started implementing your own. It’s great to see how easily the Desktop and the Web can get closer. Be sure to check it out.
• u1db: synced data for your apps on many platforms – The Ubuntu One team has been cooking something really nice for us and Stuart Langridge showed trivial it is to get up and running with your own databases. It’s a great and very natural way to use, store and sync data, in any application.
• Developers Roundtable – Benjamin Drung and Scott Kitterman were around to answer all kinds of development-related questions and did a nice job of easing everyone into a comfortable atmosphere. Particularly talking from their own experience is nice to read.

Ubuntu Developer Week always flies by much too quickly, but there will be more events related to Ubuntu development, so stay tuned.

Ubuntu Developer Week – last day ahead, summary of day 2

Day 2 is over and what a fantastic day it was! Without further ado here’s the summary of day 2:

• Introduction to Quickly – Michael Terry rocked it. As he is one of the maintainers of Quickly it was easy for him to give a nice overview of our favourite app development tool and answer all questions which came up.
• Getting help to start with Ubuntu Development The developer advisory team and beyond – As member of the MOTU team and the Developer Advisory Team, Bhavani Shankar knows what kind of questions and concerns new contributors have. He did a great job explaining how the DAT tries to help newcomers and explain what to watch out for when getting involved with Ubuntu Development.
• Fixing small bugs and forwarding the patches upstream – Stefano Rivera filled multiple pages with content during his session and explained very nicely where to find easy tasks to work on and which typical bug fixing initiatives are going on in Ubuntu and Debian.
• libmessagingmenu – As a new member of the Desktop infrastructure it was great to see libmessagingmenu explained by somebody who put lots of work into it. Thanks Lars Uebernickel – now it should be easier to integrate with libmessagingmenu for interested developers.
• Ubuntu Juju Tips and Tricks – With Ubuntu’s focus on the Cloud world, we had to have a session about Juju. Read the log and see how Mark Mims went into detail about how to get the most out of it.

I’m sure you’re as sad as everybody else, but today is the last day of Ubuntu Developer Week. Don’t despair though, there’ll be many many more. Here’s what’s up on the schedule for today:

1. 15:00 UTC: Getting started with app development – David Planella has been working with the App Developer community for quite a while, so he knows the pitfalls and problems you might run into when writing your first app.
2. 15:30 UTC: Intro to translations in Ubuntu – David has also worked with the Translations community a lot, so stay tuned for a great session on making software speak all kinds of languages.
3. 16:00 UTC: Adding test cases with UTAH – Quick introduction to Ubuntu Test Automation Harness. How to get involved, and how to get support from the development team or contribute.
4. 16:30 UTC: Q&A about test automation – Answers for anyone with questions about starting a new automated suite, where to start with automation (with or without UTAH) of package testing, feel free to come over and ask. If there are no questions there won’t be any answers either!
5. 17:00 UTC: Getting started with Ubuntu WebApps – Getting the Ubuntu Desktop closer to the web was a huge undertaking, but totally worth it. Ubuntu is just so much better with all the goodness being closely integrated. Alex Launi and Alex Abreu are experts on the topic.
6. 18:00 UTC: u1db: synced data for your apps on many platforms – If your app deal with any kind of data, you might be interested in hooking it up with Ubuntu One DB. Stuart Langridge will tell you exactly ho.
7. 19:00 UTC: Developers Roundtable – Do you have questions about Ubuntu development? Here you have the best opportunity to ask everything you want to know, because we will have a number of developers there who can answer your questions for you.

We hope to see many of you around today as it’s the last day. Tell your friends and bring them and your questions. Join in!

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!

Ubuntu Developer Week starts today

One of my favourite parts of the cycle is about to start in just a few hours: Ubuntu Developer Week is about to kick off today. If you’re interested in Ubuntu Development, you’re in for three days of talks and workshops. Join in and be part of these sessions today:

1. 15:00 UTC: Introduction to Ubuntu Development – If you are completely new to Ubuntu Development, this is a session you will want to attend. Daniel Holbach will give you a good overview how things work and you will have heard about all the essential bits.
2. 16:00 UTC: Getting set up for Ubuntu development – In this session you will learn which tools you need and how to configure them best. Afterwards you will be ready to go to start working on Ubuntu packages.
3. 17:00 UTC: Something about ARM – Heard a lot about ARM devices recently? We’re sure you have. Everybody’s excited about Ubuntu’s new first-class citizen. Learn more from Oliver Grawert what it takes to make Ubuntu run on these.
4. 18:00 UTC: Ubuntu Development for the Youth – Bilal Akhtar is one of Ubuntu’s younger Ubuntu developers and has been involved in making it easier for other young contributors to get involved. Attend the session and be convinced that anybody can start getting involved! 🙂
5. 19:00 UTC: Something about Python3 – Barry Warsaw has been involved in Python for a very long and he’d love to see everything ported to Python3. In this session Barry will give you a few really good reasons to look into Python3.

Join us in #ubuntu-classroom on irc.freenode.net and get involved! You won’t regret it.