Difference between revisions of "Coders"

Latest revision as of 18:46, 17 September 2008

Intro

The coders group at Free Geek is the place you can learn or teach about software programming and development. This is informally organized around various projects, with some guidance from the Technocrats and some spillover with the ASSes. This is not very educationally focused, lacking any structure for shepherding people through the trying work of figuring out how to get stuff done. If you want to contribute to a free software project and you can work fairly independently (or in small, self-forming groups of interested volunteers), go through the rest of this page and find something that piques your interest.

Coding Projects

Here are some projects we are working on at Free Geek:

FGdb -- This is Ruby ( http://www.ruby-lang.org/ ) on rails ( http://rubyonrails.org ) code that talks to a PostgreSQL database ( http://www.postgresql.org/ ).

FGdiag -- Miscellaneous code for testing gizmos. (mostly ruby)

Distro Implementation -- Figure out how to get the software onto the boxes we build, and how to make it work like we want it to.

Other Coding Projects -- There are usually a variety of smaller tasks that need doing, often using shell scripting.

Getting Started

If any of the above projects interest you, you may want to join the coders. we're open to anyone so long as the work you do is done cooperatvely with other Free Geek volunteers and you're willing to let it be licensed under an open source license, preferably the GPL.

To get started:

Read Martin's stock New Coder Introduction.

In the Portland, Oregon, USA area?

Sign up for the coders mailing list http://lists.freegeek.org/listinfo/coders (email lists for coders)
- Post a message and introduce yourself
- If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you'll want to come down to Free Geek to meet the other local coders and get started. Ask the front desk to meet a sysadmin or technocrat.

Somewhere else?

Sign up for the coders mailing list http://lists.freegeek.org/listinfo/coders (email lists for coders)
- Post a message and introduce yourself
- Say you're from out of town and we'll contact you about getting set up.
Coding is one of the few ways you can volunteer at Free Geek from a distance.

Wherever you are:

Coding is done by editing text files, see Text Editing for Coders for more info.
Get an account on the appropriate Free Geek Computers for Coders.
Get an SVN account. (Subversion for Coders)
Get an RT account http://todo.freegeek.org/ (RT for coders)
Free Geek coders hang out on IRC at freenode.net ( http://freenode.net/ ) on the #freegeek channel. (IRC for coders)

Big Picture Stuff

Rethinking Coders -- thoughts on how the coders program can be improved and where it's going.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Category:Structure]]
+[[Category:Programs]]
 ==Intro==
-The coders group at Free Geek is the place you can learn or teach about software programming and development. We normally do this at coders workshops.
+The coders group at Free Geek is the place you can learn or teach about software programming and development.  This is informally organized around various projects, with some guidance from the [[Technocrats]] and some spillover with the [[ASS]]es.  This is not very educationally focused, lacking any structure for shepherding people through the trying work of figuring out how to get stuff done.  If you want to contribute to a free software project and you can work fairly independently (or in small, self-forming groups of interested volunteers), go through the rest of this page and find something that piques your interest.
-Coders workshops meet weekly on Tuesdays at 7:15. They are open to all -- experienced and new coders alike. The only requirement is that you want to help and learn or teach in the process. We try to team up experienced folks with newbies. We only work on stuff we actually use, so your work is always needed.
-While most coders live in the Portland area and come in to Free Geek to volunteer, coding is the one volunteer opportunity at Free Geek that is available to people outside our local area. If you want to help out and live outside the Portland, Oregon area, sign up for the mailing list (see [[#Getting_Started]] below) and ask about how to plug in, or do the same on IRC.
 ==Coding Projects==
 Here are some projects we are working on at Free Geek:
-[[FGdb]] -- This is PHP code ( http://www.php.net/ ) that talks to a PostgreSQL database ( http://www.postgresql.org/ ).
+[[FGdb]] -- This is Ruby ( http://www.ruby-lang.org/ ) on rails ( http://rubyonrails.org ) code that talks to a PostgreSQL database ( http://www.postgresql.org/ ).
-[[FGdiag]] -- Python code ( http://www.python.org/ ) used for testing gizmos.
+[[FGdiag]] -- Miscellaneous code for testing gizmos. (mostly ruby)
 [[Distro Implementation]] -- Figure out how to get the software onto the boxes we build, and how to make it work like we want it to.
@@ Line 22: / Line 19: @@
 If any of the above projects interest you, you may want to join the coders. we're open to anyone so long as the work you do is done cooperatvely with other Free Geek volunteers and you're willing to let it be licensed under an open source license, preferably the GPL.
-To join:
+To get started:
+* Read Martin's stock [[New Coder Introduction]].
-===In the portland area?===
+===In the Portland, Oregon, USA area?===
 * Sign up for the coders mailing list http://lists.freegeek.org/listinfo/coders ([[email lists for coders]])
 ** Post a message and introduce yourself
-** If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you'll want to come down to Free Geek to meet the other local coders and get started. Ask for a "coders orientation". We typically hold orientations as needed at 6:30 pm on Tuesday evenings. At the orientation, we will help you get set up.
+** If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you'll want to come down to Free Geek to meet the other local coders and get started.  Ask the front desk to meet a [[ASS | sysadmin]] or [[Technocrats | technocrat]].
 ===Somewhere else?===
@@ Line 36: / Line 33: @@
 * Coding is one of the few ways you can volunteer at Free Geek from a distance.
-===Everyone===
+===Wherever you are:===
 * Coding is done by editing text files, see [[Text Editing for Coders]] for more info.
-* Get an account on the appropriate [[Free Geek Computers for Coders]]. (See also [[SSH for coders]])
+* Get an account on the appropriate [[Free Geek Computers for Coders]].
-* Get a CVS account. ([[CVS for coders]])
+* Get an SVN account. ([[Subversion for Coders]])
-* Get an RT account http://todo.freegeek.org/rt/ ([[RT for coders]])
+* Get an RT account http://todo.freegeek.org/ ([[RT for coders]])
 * Free Geek coders hang out on IRC at freenode.net ( http://freenode.net/ ) on the #freegeek channel. ([[IRC for coders]])
-==Programming Classes==
+==Big Picture Stuff==
-When the current version of [[FGdb]] was being planned we held two classes so that we'd have several coders with a common base of knowledge. The outlines for these two classes are available online:
+* [[Rethinking Coders]] -- thoughts on how the coders program can be improved and where it's going.
-* The Intro to Relational Databases and SQL class outline is available at http://freegeek.org/sql-class/
-* The Intro to Web Based Applications Using PHP class outline is available at http://freegeek.org/php-class/
-If you need to understand how databases work in general, please study these as soon as possible.
-* Some notes on our Python class are available at http://freegeek.org/python-class/
+[[Category: Coders]]