Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Python 3 Porting FAD: Lessons Learned


After presenting the results of the Python 3 Porting FAD, I would like to present what I consider the lessons learned of this event:
  1. We need a well-defined workflow, clear and easy to explain. Often less experienced participants felt confusion in understanding how could they contribute to the FAD. Apparently, the Matej blog post was not enough. I think we should have a wiki space with a diagram, basic instructions and related links.
  2. The event involves many different roles (not only developer). Throughout the execution of the FAD we realized that to speed-up the results it is necessary to have packagers (including provenpackagesrs), quality assurance (to evaluate packages) and documentation writers (to update the job status).
  3. Technical leaders play an important role. I think this happens in a smooth way, but when someone was not sure of what he/she was doing sought the guidance of an experienced person. This role was well taken by Ralph, Toshio and Petr (born leaders). In upcoming events, these contact points must be previously defined.
  4. This kind of events educates Fedora contributors about the project initiatives. Many users and contributors of the Fedora Project know very little what is done within the project. And this is the case, some contributors have the talent to contribute effectively, but do not know the initiatives. I think the official communication channels (mailing lists, Fedora Planet, Fedora Magazine and Fedora Community Blog) greatly influenced the success of this event.
  5. The need to migrate applications and libraries from Python 2 to Python 3 still persists. There are a lot of packages have not yet been ported to Python 3. The event was an appetizer of what we keep doing to reduce this number to the minimum. I think the best approach should be doing more FADs.
  6. There was an interest from Python developers not directly involved with Fedora. I have understood that Matej published event information in an unofficial channel (Reddit) and this had a positive impact on the participation of developers looking to get as much as possible in Python 3.
  7. A virtual global event is possible and can be successful. This event is a specific example that can serve as case within the project to understand that Fedora Project contributors have much to contribute; the members of the different regions (LATAM, NA, EMEA, APAC) can work together as a team regardless of timezones and geographical differences.
  8. This will not be the unique Python 3 Porting FAD. As an organizer, finishing the event and see that people kept asking for it gives me the indication that we must hold a second (and why not, a third) edition of the FAD.
I appreciate you took the time to read this post. If you have any suggestion to make the event even better, do not hesitate to communicate them on the python-devel mailing-list or in the event wiki.
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