10:56:05 #startmeeting 10:56:05 Meeting started Fri Jun 11 10:56:05 2010 UTC. The chair is mchua. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 10:56:05 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 10:56:18 #action mchua fix that we did not log last night 12:58:13 w00t 12:58:20 * pfroehlich waves 13:08:19 #info: Today's topic - teaching! 13:14:06 http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/user/basics.indexing.html#boolean-or-mask-index-arrays 13:14:36 mchua: so, what are we doing? :-D 13:14:45 pfroehlich: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Worcester_State#Thursday 13:14:48 #link http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Worcester_State#Thursday 13:14:52 whoops 13:14:53 #link http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_Worcester_State#Friday 13:14:56 er... 13:21:06 #topic Hacking wrap-up with Walter 13:21:10 We're going to wrap up our own project work for the week now. 13:25:31 #info Walter invites people to keep hacking and working, we use the #sugar channel (some of you have been in it already) 13:27:14 I think we need to agree on how to stabilize the posse branch so we can push it though. 13:31:26 not sure how to get someone to fix git.sugarlabs.org, tried a few times on #sugar but zip :-/ 13:31:36 gpollice: bring 'er up to walter. :) 13:31:44 * mchua glad we have software engineering profs here ;) 13:32:28 mchua: I think this is something we need to decide among the hackers. He answered the question about pushing, but we have to decide when it's ready. 13:32:42 gpollice: +1 13:35:08 #link http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program 13:35:16 #info If you want an XO for development, ^^ is how. 13:39:20 mchua: I had an exchange with our ACM student chapter president last night. The Worcester ACM chapters are having a short conference later this month among the officers. I mentioned the hackathon, etc. I'd like to get more information to him so they can plan one. 13:40:02 gpollice: What sort of details do you need? 13:40:49 mchua: You mentioned that they could possibly get some people in and pizza money. How do they go about that? I think they could probably find some interesting things to do on Sugar. 13:41:09 Or, it might just be worth doing a mini-POSSE. 13:41:47 I think between all of the schools in Worcester, we'd get 50-100 or more students. 13:41:49 Whoa. 13:42:08 That's only 5 per school for the 50. :-) 13:42:26 * mchua grins. 13:42:58 gpollice: Hackathons are usually planned pretty informally - you don't have to ask permission to run them (actually, the only thing you'd have to ask for is resources, if you need resources). 13:43:26 Fedora has a way to request funds for Fedora-related hacking - https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD and https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_organize_a_FAD 13:43:34 mchua: Right. Who do they go to in order to ask for resources...never mind. ? 13:43:38 gpollice: Sugar Labs does not, yet. 13:43:44 (to my knowledge) 13:43:58 however, we've had people ask for things on mailing lists and individuals have stepped up with resources. 13:45:25 That's how I planned my first hackathon. 13:45:38 (we'll continue when you're done presenting :) 13:45:42 mchua: the meetbot does not return any response when you give it a comand, so you dont know if it heard you or not? 13:46:05 kevix: Hm. Yeah... mostly I trust meetbot. 13:46:18 Sometimes this trust is misplaced, but ianweller has a log recovery mechanism up and running now, so it's ok. :) 13:46:20 I do have a log of stuff. 13:46:43 kevix: Ooh. Could you... do you have the log from before this morning when I cursed and #startmeeting-ed again? 13:46:58 #info We now switch topics to teaching and the classroom! 13:47:01 will check. 13:47:04 #topic What folks have already taught 13:47:13 #info Gary is now presenting the things he's done with his students at WPI 13:47:16 (I'll do my best to take notes here) 13:48:56 #info Gary teaches a software engineering class - 7 weeks, 15-student teams, build a feature on WPIsuite start-to-finish, with characters (played by Gary - the team's President, CTO, Marketing folks) for teams to interact with ("simulated client"). 13:49:01 #link https://sourceforge.wpi.edu/sf/sfmain/do/home 13:52:48 #info His students use their local sourceforge repo, blogs, etc. to keep track of their work and what they do; it also makes it easy for him to see their work and grade them afterwards. 13:53:16 mchua: my log starts about 1025h if previous day and no sign on #startmeeting for that day. 13:53:50 s/if/of/ 13:54:24 kevix: could you email me that log? I'll find the place to start and shoot it to Ian's queue for processing into proper logs. 13:54:53 #info Gary is demonstrating the requirements-tracker in sourceforge (wpi's local version) that his class uses. 13:55:28 #info WPIsuite is a dashboard - modular dashboard - for software engineering project management. 13:55:36 The idea is you connect it to a database. 13:55:56 You can set up any db you want. 13:56:30 Users can login and see a dashboard for their project (WPIsuite is now up on the projector as a demo). 13:57:06 We're looking at the "requirements manager" tab. 13:57:17 Each of these tabs (for instance, the reqs manager) is a module. 13:59:08 mchua: email being prepared of irc log 13:59:12 Going through the features of the requirements manager module - the elements of a requirement item (title, status, completed, etc) and demo of the workflow. 13:59:16 kevix: thank you! 13:59:32 #info WPIsuite is written in Java. 14:04:27 #link http://sourceforge.wpi.edu:8080/sf/projects/wpisuite 14:04:56 #info "Our initial goal for the first few releases of WPI Suite is to build a functional, stable, suite of tools that support student project teams with requirements management, project planning, collaboration, metrics, and other fundamental tools required for succeeding in software engineering projects at Worcester Polytechnic Institute." 14:06:47 Hey, Jefro - while I remember, I'm still trying to think of a song to write you a TOS parody for, for LinuxCon. :) 14:07:07 Jefro: Open to ideas (and lists of songs you already know, so I don't throw "Freebird" at you, or something.) 14:08:42 Can someone ( pfroehlich ? ) take over note-taking? I have to get Walter to the train station. 14:09:10 mchua: i'll try 14:09:33 thanks! 14:09:37 pfroehlich: the #info tag is your friend ;) 14:09:51 #info Going over new features now, VNC, Planning Game support, Test Management, etc. 14:10:16 #info Submissions of ZIP files to run automated tests. 14:11:04 #info Wants this to be open source and get more buy-in from outside. There's some documentation but it's getting better. :-D 14:12:01 #info Performance is a little laggy sometimes, ActiveObjects may be one culprit? 14:12:27 #info Being used at WPI in the Software Engineering course (eat your own dog food?) 14:12:59 #info Mihaela: your book is going to cover this? 14:13:10 #info Answer: yes, lots of the original 2009 term stuff will be in the book 14:13:26 #info Answer: some other stuff will only be online 14:14:41 #info Peter: Do other classes or teachers use this? 14:15:01 #info Answer: It's usable, but not yet. Not eveyrbody teaches the same way, so it may not fit 100% 14:15:35 #info Answer: and it's customizable for your specific course if you put it in, very modular architecture 14:17:02 #info Mihaela: What about the tension between distributed tools (like we did this week) and an integrated tool? Worst example is BlackBoard... 14:17:27 #info Answer: independent modules, so you can edit a config file and you won't see the modules you disable 14:17:51 #info Mihaela: I'd love to have many, but some may not want all of this. 14:18:36 #info Answer: It's not complicating or simplifying too much, but it does take some effort out of the password/account mess people get into with distributed services. 14:18:48 #info Answer: Not sure where it'll go, but please play with it! :-D 14:19:33 #info Peter: what about support? :-D 14:20:01 #info Answer: no different than other projects, not yet 14:20:31 #info mahadev: is there documentation 14:20:44 #info Answer: there's some, but not too much yet 14:20:55 #info Michaela: What about an open wiki to contribute docs? 14:21:12 #info Answer: There's some of this on our sourceforge stuff, but it could be better 14:21:38 #info Jerry: Smaller classes, but versioning would be a good thing, what tool to use? 14:21:56 flossmanuals.net -- opensource manuals wiki 14:21:59 #info Answer: tending toward mercurial, need a server somewhere 14:22:10 #info Answer: git doesn't look that bad either 14:22:34 #info Answer: github for example 14:25:28 #info Sorry, there was more versioning discussion, I forgot to type. 14:26:04 #info Students have trouble with DB most often, and out of 40000 lines they usually need to be familiar with about 5000 intimately. 14:26:38 #info Mihaela: modular architecture, two tier or three tier? 14:27:38 #info Answer: activeobjects uses jdbc, you can use sql directly too, modules are self-contained, module manager using reflection, similar to building eclipse plugin 14:27:54 #info Answer: pure Java for most of it otherwise, nothing crazy 14:28:37 #info Answer: some teams are using some more dependencies, but they are all contained in the install anywya 14:29:48 #info pfroehlich: did you look at dr.project? 14:30:01 #info Answer: no, not at all 14:30:18 #info mihaela: there's antoerh one with web presence stuff that looks cool 14:30:53 #info Answer: yeah there were some out there, but tis also provided projcets for the teams and gives me exactly what I want 14:31:23 #info discussion among faculty 14:34:55 #info some use svn, some use blackboard, blackboard can be iffy, 14:35:06 #info firefox has some cool download all things that help with blackboard 14:35:20 #info some use dropbox 14:37:44 #info Karl: in last SE i had them use whatever they wanted, i just wanted an account from them to check things out 14:40:52 #info lots of talk about how to host repositories and stuff 14:45:53 * mchua reads back up 14:46:46 (Walter has been deposited at the train station, w00t) 14:47:58 OH MAN ENGADGET! 14:48:01 pbrobinson has a link ;) 14:48:57 we've made engadget! http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/11/sugar-on-a-stick-hits-3-0-teaches-us-about-a-new-kind-of-fruit/ 14:49:56 #link http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/11/sugar-on-a-stick-hits-3-0-teaches-us-about-a-new-kind-of-fruit/ 14:51:35 #link http://piratepad.net/posse-friday 14:52:35 ohh. engaget. NN was there this year. Now SOAS? 14:55:54 Yep. 15:04:46 * sdziallas is: !!!!!! (re: engadget) 15:31:13 (We're mostly in the etherpad right now - actually, almost entirely - for those who are remote.) 15:31:57 url? 15:53:21 * walterbender is getting close to South Station... 16:26:48 * mchua just demoed etherpad playback 16:26:52 mihaela: #etherpad 16:27:03 We're done for the week - thanks everyone! 16:27:09 #link http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/posse-friday/latest 16:35:00 I'll leave these logs on 'till I get back tonight. 17:31:57 sdziallas_afk, ping 17:58:05 Announcement from my owner (stickster): Reminder: Fedora Board IRC meeting at 1800 UTC (2pm US EDT) today -- #fedora-board-meeting -- visit http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Board/IRC for additional info 19:08:40 * pfroehlich waves 19:10:31 hey pfroehlich! 19:15:40 mchua: hey! i like hot dogs in worcester :-D 19:18:12 Me too! 20:58:28 pfroehlich, mchua: how were the hotdogs? 21:02:57 hi all... 21:03:11 hope the rest of the morning went well. 21:03:57 I think we discovered the problem with Measure ... a missing audio control in the system, so I hope to pull together a new Measure sooner than latter. 21:04:15 walterbender: got back in nh safe and sound. happy to find some of my tos peers green in the channel 21:05:23 mihaela: I 21:05:46 have been in meetings all afternoon... but crawling out from under a rock... 21:06:32 I was very pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of the contributions this week... we need to bottle it. 21:08:13 walterbender: the most productive faculty development workshop i had. nice balance between do it and talk about it (how, what, who, why) 21:16:27 mel will be pleased to hear that... 21:20:17 mihaela: the hotdogs were *awesome*. You have to try them at some point. 21:20:26 Also, glad it was a productive week! 21:20:56 There are definitely some things we need to tweak with the program design to make it better for next time, things I could have done differently, etc... I'll try to write those up after I finish notes from the week 21:21:05 (and then y'all can add to the POSSE-program ticket queue, so to speak ;) 21:21:11 things like "have people make accounts ahead of time" 21:21:18 and "just have liveUSBs prepared for everyone" 21:22:41 mchua: preworkshop homework on both sides (organizers and participants) is a good thing. 21:24:33 mihaela: what kind of things would you have put as homework, and how far in advance would you have given it? 21:25:05 * walterbender would suggest intensive Python lessons... but wait... you all managed just fine... either you are that good or Python is that easy or both :) 21:25:06 I was thinking about sending out readings and account creation stuff ahead of time, but we did recruitment and registration so late in the year that I didn't want to send it during finals/graduation month 21:25:38 I think planning next year's POSSEs starting next month, and having registration close by mid-March (after SIGCSE) will help - and having that pre-work ready by, say, January. 21:25:56 ...the stuff we know will stay constant. Some readings, account creation... that isn't going to change. 21:26:13 mihaela: for participants: create accounts, say hi on the channel, and write a greeting blog will always be done the day before the workshop. 21:26:25 mchua: see above 21:26:36 all of it the day before? sunday night? 21:27:13 mchua: a tos email at most a week ahead and a reminder thrusday/friday, that's all. 21:27:51 * mchua nods 21:27:58 * mchua wonders if a few readings for context would also have helped 21:28:07 (though folks seem to have come pretty well versed in what open source is, etc.) 21:28:12 (that isn't necessarily always the case) 21:28:26 mchua: oh, and ask participants to bring 'right size' sticks (thats peter r recommendation) 21:29:15 mchua: like our students, we are not good at read reading assignments, unless you really need them to do stuff 21:29:43 * mchua grins 21:30:03 mihaela: would you rather be told to bring a stick, or should I have just bought a bunch o' sticks and flashed them beforehand? 21:30:11 (and just accepted that as part of the cost of running a POSSE?) 21:30:51 mchua: for organizers: bring sticks and have them flashed beforehand 21:33:44 mchua: im sure posse-worcester graduates can give a hand on the channel if posse-rit/ca have questions 21:36:34 * mchua nods 21:36:36 that would be awesome. 21:39:49 mchua: I thought you brought sticks, but they were just wrong... 21:40:28 walterbender: Yeah, the image had... bugs. 21:40:41 We fixed them for the next round (thank you, pbrobinson) 21:40:53 I didn't bring sticks for everyone - I thought we were going to use livecds 21:41:07 but sticks are probably a better idea with livecds for backup, rather than vice versa. 21:42:18 livecds a read-only :) 21:45:45 learning is read/write :) 22:12:18 mihaela: missed you somehow after the whole switch of kis luggage :-/ 22:12:38 mihaela: guess we'll have to catch up at POSSE Baltimore then :-D 22:20:25 there are read/write-able cd images - unionfs - knoppix used them IIRC. dont know if that would work here. 22:21:27 kevix: the clean thing about sticks is that people don't have to touch the disks in the laptops, so they don't even have allow the stick to create a file if they are paranoid 22:27:15 pfroehlich: yes. using a r/w cdrom would not touch the HD either. 22:27:39 kevix: also a cd rom is not guaranteed in a netbook like mine :-/ 22:28:02 pfroehlich: Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. 22:28:08 Not sure why, seems obvious in retrospect. 22:28:24 well, that is true. I dont know the cost of cdrw vs sticks (1gb, 2gb) 22:28:33 mchua: it's why I want to have a perfect stick image for my class :-D 22:29:17 mchua: I may even find money somewhere to give the sticks to students, we'll see 22:29:33 kevix, mchua: it's not too much to expect people to show up with their own USB stick for POSSE 22:29:37 actually, I think its a regular cd that it uses with multiple sessions. 22:29:37 * mchua nods 22:30:01 kevix, mchua; it may be *easier* to have the prepared and paid for my redhat, but heck, it's like 20 bucks for a stick? 22:30:17 mchua: even if you're a poor lecturer, you can afford that 22:30:45 Especially if it's yours and you take it home afterwards and can use it for whatever. 22:31:46 it an idea situation RH or the person will buy a stick. but there are always unexpected events. 22:33:38 We'd have backups, of course. 22:33:57 if you require folks to bring sticks and ask anyone who has a problem to mention it to the managment, then that is one way. 22:35:06 Yeah, but still, in case someone forgets, etc. 22:35:13 but that's a good call, we should do that next summer. 22:35:51 * mchua just added to http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/POSSE_program_design#Future_discussion_topics 22:36:45 you could also bring extra sticks that will be reused (take users data off after session and mail tarball to them for reuse later)? 22:55:32 pfroehlich_food: we're headed to meet you 22:55:49 mchua: huh? 22:55:55 mchua: you still here? 22:56:39 pfroehlich_food: Yeah, pbrobinson and I started working, and... never... quite stopped. 22:57:27 mchua: i hope on the stick :-D see ya soon!!! :-D i am hungry so walk out already :-D 23:52:33 pfroehlich_food, mchua_afk, others who have OpenHatch accounts: try what our GSoC student wrote out! http://openhatch.org/missions/ 01:47:13 paulproteus: you are working on nefarious schemes again? 01:47:35 pfroehlich: Yes, this time with Google's funding (for John Stumpo (from acm.jhu.edu) to work with us) 01:48:18 paulproteus: nice! i think John was going to take a course with me next semester, if it happens anyway 01:48:30 (-: 01:48:58 we had brazilian steaks and stuff, it was sooooooooooo good :-D 01:49:28 Oh maaaan. 01:49:44 and Redhat paid since it was a working meeting for a POSSE in Baltimore :-D 02:35:15 paulproteus: still here? 02:57:21 pfroehlich: Yes! 02:57:23 Was away. 02:57:30 pfroehlich: Nice re: POSSE in Baltimore 02:57:31 I'm envious. 02:57:34 I want to teach one. 02:57:39 Also I want to RedHat to pay for things for me. 02:59:54 paulproteus: You know, that *can* be arranged. 03:00:03 We encourage folks to bring POSSEs to their alma mater... 03:00:23 mchua: I was thinking about asking earlier, but was kind of shy about it... 03:00:33 But then I saw the email about funding on [TOS] and I thought Maybe it's okay to mention it. 03:01:08 paulproteus: YES PLEASE MENTION IT! *dances around* 03:01:52 * mchua --> rapidly fading into unconsciousness 03:02:05 I've been waking up at 5am pretty much all week, which is... about 4-5 hours earlier than I typically do. 03:02:09 I'm shot. 03:55:45 * pfroehlich waves at kis 03:56:03 * kis waves back 03:56:19 pfroehlich: I made it back to schenectady. 03:56:38 kis: we went for the Brazilian Steak and WOW did you miss something :-D 03:56:58 kis: i leave early tomorrow, it'll be a fun drive 03:57:11 kis; still trying to figure out how I can avoid NY on the way back 03:57:14 pfroehlich: Ooh man! Brazilian steak! Hmm! 03:57:29 kis: we went for "all you can eat" 03:58:02 pfroehlich: Did they have interesting cow parts? 03:58:39 kis: ahhhhhh what? 03:58:48 * pfroehlich feels creeped out 03:59:39 pfroehlich: I have never had authentic Brazilian bbq. But I have been to Argentinian asados. And there they definitely were eating some parts of the cow that are not normally served at German BBq.s 04:00:04 pfroehlich: Some of them were pretty good though. 04:02:06 kis: I don't think they brought us anything that looked un-served in Germany. 04:02:15 kis: everything we did get was delicious :-D 04:02:22 pfroehlich: :-) 04:02:36 kis: maybe it's like in Chinese places where you simply can't have certain things unless you're chinese 04:05:25 pfroehlich: Too bad that I missed that! 04:05:35 pfroehlich: I am going to bed now. Good night! 04:41:01 paulproteus, you know that's exactly the model RH wants. 04:41:15 Money, RH has. Qualified profs, they don't. 04:41:24 Yet. :) 04:46:30 gregdek: Unfortunately I'm "just" a professional programmer; it's not part of my daily job to teach undergraduates. 04:46:42 So iirc I can't teach a POSSE... unless I'm mistaken. 04:46:55 paulproteus, can you find some profs? :) 04:47:07 * paulproteus did, pfroehlich was on here (-: 04:47:23 I mean, I used to teach undergraduates as a TA for a course. 04:47:30 But that was ca. 3y ago now. 04:48:15 Doesn't hurt to ask. 04:49:10 Meaning, I should apply to run a POSSE? (-: 04:49:46 Unrelatedly, did you see about OpenHatch's GSoC project, "training missions" for open source development skills? 04:51:01 Right now they have a big "beta" thing plastered over them, so you have to log in to openhatch.org first and then go to http://openhatch.org/missions/ 04:51:14 Oo! 04:52:19 Looks like you've got some fleshing out to do. :) 04:52:25 I know that feeling. 04:52:36 But the tar mission works (-: 04:52:50 Hoepfully we'll have more as the summer progresses, if GSoC goes well (-: 08:31:20 paulproteus: Yes - and remember, each POSSE needs 2 instrutors *and* a tech guru... and openhatch itself might make a nifty POSSE focus. 08:31:38 * mchua is starting to think of POSSEs as, in part, a mini-hackathon *aimed* at bringing profs in as new contributors 08:31:51 with a focus on that, rather than necessarily completion of the hacking 09:38:42 mchua: the feeling of being part of a community of hackers, flowing, learning, contributing, especially for educators who are not part of this, is a powerful expierence. 09:39:22 kevix: They're part of a different community - academia. (Often several communities, really - we all have hobbies, families, etc.) 09:39:39 But yes, being able to experience being part of *this* community - I think, in my biased way, is pretty awesome. :) 09:40:10 It's always neat to be able to become "part of" something you've wondered about but haven't been able to get "into" before (for whatever reason, including not quite knowing how or thinking that you can't). 16:17:27 pbrobinson: I'm on my way, ETA 1pm. 00:24:14 mchua: re: "and a tech guru": well I can certainly do that last thing. 00:53:10 paulproteus: Yeah, I thought you might do that quite well. :) 01:18:22 I will go home now. 01:46:54 * pfroehlich waves