Re: Code sprint #2

[Rik]

> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 21:01:25 -0400
> From: "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden>
> To: Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso <address@hidden>
> Cc: Octave Maintainers List <address@hidden>
> Subject: Second code sprint?
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> On  1-Aug-2011, Jordi Guti?rrez Hermoso wrote:
> 
> | I had a really good time during the first code sprint, and it seemed
> | to have created a small bustle of activity. At least one person who
> | first contributed a patch during the code sprint has contributed
> | another bug fix that I just pushed yesterday. Today in #octave people
> | were asking if we were going to have a second code sprint, because it
> | seems like a good way to attract new developers with small but
> | important tasks.
> | 
> | So how about we finish or get closer to finishing writing tests for
> | all Octave functions? I propose September 3, roughly one month from
> | today to give people time to plan for it.

Jordi,

Advertise, advertise, advertise.  I put an item in the NEWS list on
www.octave.org and I wrote periodic broadcast e-mails to the maintainers
and help mailing lists.  Even that was probably not enough, in my view, as
I had hoped to attract more people.  I don't exactly want a Slashdot post,
but it would be nice if we could be seen by a larger audience.  Perhaps GNU
or Savannah have a featured product of the month and we could put up a
posting there?

> 
> I'm all for it and should be able to participate September 3.
> 
> Based on our experience with the first, I think we may need a better
> way to claim functions that we are working on as I spent a fair amount
> of time at the beginning trying to find out whether someone else might
> be working on the same functions that I was interested in.

John,

I had intended that people would be able to claim functions on the wiki
page since the pages are not really password protected (only bot-protected
through a trivial password).  Also, I personally didn't mind the chatter on
the #octave channel as people claimed functions.  I thought that worked to
encourage communication.

--Rik