Re: Perl QA Hackathon 2013 / 2014 transition

Philippe Bruhat (BooK) said:
> 
> Hi,
>
> As the main organizer of the next Perl QA Hackathon in Lyon (the venue is 
> here: http://goo.gl/maps/mXo15), I would like to collect some feedback on 
> the hackathon that we just came back from, in Lancaster.

Great! ^^


> I would like to collect your impressions about what worked and what 
> didn't, what was missing, what you want for next year (including dates, 
> but know it's going to be a Friday-Sunday hackathon). You can reply in 
> public or in private. I already wrote down all the things I liked from 
> this year, as the team has set the bar quite high already. :-)

Here's my public feedback.

I've been to two QA hackathons, and this one was by far the best one! :)

Here are the good bits (please keep):

  + I loved the food
  + The fact that so many came
  + The discussions and stories and gossip :)
  + Having a working wireless network
  + The consensus sessions
  + Lancaster
  + Good to get an info folder
  + Useful to have phone #'s on the attendee badge
  + The coffee was very enjoyable


Here are the bits that would be nice to improve at the next hackathon:

  - More than one room for hacking? The main room we had was packed.
  - 16h access to venue would be nice (not 10/8h). Hacking at the pub wasn't
    too bad though.
  - Standup-meetings at the end of the day would be nice to have. I would
    have loved to hear what people were up to.
  - An optional hackathon commercial support ticket price would have been
    nice. Some businesses have budgets for training but not sponsorship.


Here are a few ideas maybe worth trying out:

  + Have the hackathon on thu/fri/sat/sun (one additional day), to make it
    easier for attendees who can't spend weekends hacking but would like to
    come anyway.
  + Move hackathon dates to a few weeks earlier, so attendees can submit
    hackathon-relevant talks to YAPC and other conferences before deadlines.
  + Make an effort to invite people for external (non-Perl) communities.
    Examples might include: Distro vendors; Packaging experts; People in the
    TAP community (See the tap-l IETF mailing list).
  + Set one lofty coding-related goal for the hackathon, with intention that
    "everyone" can help make it happen, and with a list of tasks anyone
    (even new attendees) can work on.


> The goal is to add a bunch of bullet points to our work document, so that
> we can start early on making the next QA hackathon even more productive
> and useful.

Hope that my comments help somehow.


- Salve, who enjoyed the hackathon a lot

-- 
#!/usr/bin/perl
sub AUTOLOAD{$AUTOLOAD=~/.*::(\d+)/;seek(DATA,$1,0);print#  Salve Joshua Nilsen
getc DATA}$"="'};&{'";@_=unpack("C*",unpack("u*",':4@,$'.#     <[email protected]>
'2!--"5-(50P%$PL,!0X354UC-PP%/0\`'."\n"));eval "&{'@_'}";   __END__ is near! :)