Posted on February 24, 2010 - by jono

Rocking The Opportunistic Desktop

I just wanted to summarize some fun opportunistic developer things going on over the next few weeks. all of these events provide a great opportunity to get started having fun making awesome apps that you can share with others.

Presenting The Opportunistic Developer Vision

On Wednesday 24th Feb at 11am / 2pm EST / 7pm UTC/GMT I will be giving the talk that I delivered this past weekend at SCALE in LA in which I talk about the work going on in the Ubuntu community to embrace Opportunistic Developers in writing awesome free software apps. If you are curious about all this blathering about opportunistic developers from me, be sure to tune in and check it out. Tune in here.

Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer Week

A few weeks ago 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
• Testdrive – DustinKirkland
• CouchDB support in your app with DesktopCouch – Stuart Langridge
• Creating stunning interfaces with Cairo – Laszlo Pandy
• Hot rodding your app for translations support – David Planella
• 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
• Learning through examples with Acire and Python-Snippets – Jono Bacon
• 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.

All of this awesome content is best experienced using Lernid. 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.

Introduction To Python Tuition Sessions

Now, many of you will be entirely new to Python and entirely new to coding. To give you folks a head start before Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer 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

This is a great way of getting your opportunistic development kickstarted!

Again, this awesome content is best experienced using Lernid. 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.

Fun Apps And Hacking Parties

With an awesome week of opportunistic developer learning ahead of us, I was keen to put together some sessions where you good folks can just hack on fun projects in the same room, ask each other questions and more. As such, at the end of each Opportunistic Developer Week day, there will be a a series of parties. These include:

• Mon 1st March 2010 – 21.00 – 23.00UTC – Hacking Party – Work on your app together, ask/answer questions and have fun together!
• Tues 2nd March 2010 – 21.00 – 23.00UTC – Hacking Party – Work on your app together, ask/answer questions and have fun together!
• Wed 3rd March 2010 – 21.00 – 23.00UTC – Hacking Party – Work on your app together, ask/answer questions and have fun together!
• Thu 4th March 2010 – 21.00 – 23.00UTC – Snippets Party – Join us and create Python snippets!\
• Fri 5th March 2010 – 21.00 – 23.00UTC – Hacking Party – Work on your app together, ask/answer questions and have fun together!

This is an awesome opportunity to get together and make something fun. So, I have a challenge for you good folks: before we start next week, think of a fun app to focus on writing next week. Pick something that will do something useful for you and something not too large and comprehensive (e.g. don’t pick a word processor or spreadsheet!).

The Place To Be: #ubuntu-app-devel

As part of building an awesome community and platform for opportunistic developers, I created #ubuntu-app-devel on Freenode and we have a great group of enthusiastic developers in there who can answer your questions and help you get started. Join us and join in hte fun!