Posted on February 11, 2010 - by jono

Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week Update

Earlier this week I announced the plan to put together Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week: a week of IRC tuition sessions aimed at helping opportunistic developers scratch their itches and write fun and useful programs using our awesome platform. The week takes place from 1st – 6th March 2010.

The response so far to the call for sessions has been fantastic, and we already have the following sessions scheduled, all visible from the timetable for the week:

• Welcome! Ubuntu For Opportunistic Developers – Jono Bacon
• Gooey Graphics with GooCanvas – Rick Spencer
• Getting your app in Launchpad with Bazaar – David Futcher
• CouchDB support in your app with DesktopCouch – Stuart Langridge
• Creating stunning interfaces with Cairo – Laszlo Pandy
• Creating a PyKDE app – Rich Johnson
• Creating an application from scratch with Quickly – Rick Spencer
• Microblog from your app with the Gwibber API – Ken VanDine
• What’s new in Quickly 0.4 – Didier Roche
• Building in Application Indicator support – Sense Hofstede
• Writing a Rhythmbox plug-in – Stuart Langridge
• Create games with PyGame – Rick Spencer
• Write Beautiful Code (and Maintain it Beautifully) – rockstar
• Using GTK+ signals in Python – Sense Hofstede
• Integrated development workflow with Ground Control – Martin Owens
• Building multimedia into your app with GStreamer – Laszlo Pandy
• Speed your development with quickly.widgets – Rick Spencer
• Web browsing and rapid UI with WebKit – Ryan Paul

Each of these sessions is designed to give you a taste of the topic and get you up and running, enough to be productive and start exploring the features of the tool being discussed. In addition to this we will have a series of showcase sessions:

• SHOWCASE: Gwibber – Ken VanDine
• SHOWCASE: Lernid – Jono Bacon
• SHOWCASE: Photobomb – Rick Spencer

These sessions explain the story behind the app: talking about which tools, modules and technology that was used to put these apps together and what challenges were solved. This is a great way to learn more about tools available for opportunistic developers so that when you need to do something, you know which tool to reach out for.

Now, many of you will be entirely new to Python and entirely new to coding. To give you folks a head start before the week kicks off, Rick Spencer from the desktop team will be running some beginners Python tuition sessions on the Thursday before Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week:

• Thu 25th Feb 2010 – 15.00 UTC – Ubuntu Opp Dev Week Prep: Intro to Python for total beginners – Rick Spencer
• Thu 25th Feb 2010 – 16.00 UTC – Ubuntu Opp Dev Week Prep: Intro to Python for programmers – Rick Spencer

We are still looking for sessions, and if you want to contribute and give one, just drop me an email at jono AT ubuntu DOT com.

All of this awesome content is best experienced using Lernid and I have asked Michael, the new Lernid maintainer if he can roll a new release this weekend. So, expect a new Lernid packaged and ready for the week of opportunistic goodness. If you would prefer to use a normal IRC client, just join #ubuntu-classroom and #ubuntu-classroom-chat to join in the fun.

Rock and opportunistic roll, my friends.