Add article about social coding.

pelican.conf.py

@@ -6,8 +6,6 @@ AUTHOR = u'Alexis Métaireau'
 SITENAME = u"Alexis' log" 
 SITEURL = 'http://blog.notmyidea.org'
 
-PAGES = (('projects', 'pages/projects.html'),)
-
 LINKS = (('Biologeek', 'http://biologeek.org'),
             ('Filyb', "http://filyb.info/"),
             ('Libert-fr', "http://www.libert-fr.com"),

thoughts/social-coding.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+Fork you ! or how the social coding can help you
+#################################################
+
+:date: 2010-11-05
+
+With github_ and bitbucket_ coming around, a lot of new usages appears for the
+developpers: it's now easy to get feedback on your code/modifications, and to get
+help from others by, for instance, forking repositories.
+
+Eeach time I see people helping others, I'm amazed by how we like to share 
+our knowledge. 
+
+I say github, because it seems to be the more mainstream, but I think it's
+something strongly related to the DVCS_ principles: the "only" thing github have 
+made is to turn that into a social network, and to reveal the awesomeness of the
+DVCSes to the masses.
+
+What is really interesting is to see how this platform is addictive: it's
+automatically updating a webpages with the more accurate informations about the
+projects you're involved in, and add a bit of magic to that using webhooks,
+allowing you to update your website each time you push to you repository, for
+instance.
+
+Quite nothing, indeed, but, I don't know why, I find this fascinating.
+
+I haven't had the privilege to see my projects forked from github by strangers,
+but I've forked others repository to give an hand some times, when I wanted to,
+and the main reason is "because it's **fun**" to do so.
+
+Yeah, you're probably right, you have to be a nerd to find fun to fork others. 
+The good point is that geeks are a kind of nerds, and some geeks are coders :)
+
+New ways to contribute
+======================
+
+In addition, it seems that he community, or the communities, are there, on those 
+new social networks for coders. It's really handy to drop an eye on interesting 
+projects, to report bugs, propose new features, and check what new projects this
+or this person have made.
+
+Well, "it's not new", you may think. That's true, because it's been a while that
+SVN was there and even CVS before that. But, it was a bit messy to "fork" a
+project, isn't it ? And I'm not talking about all the hell SVN involved with it
+(who have not had issues with those messy .svn folders raises an hand !).
+
+It have not been so easy to share code and thoughts about code, to propose
+changes on existing code, than now. You think it's better to implement this or
+that in a different way ? Clone it (fork it), make your changes and publish
+them, and then ask projects owners about it. For sure you'll have answers.
+
+Even if they don't want it, you can easily keep your changes, and keep getting
+their updates!
+
+Also, lot of *fashionables* projects tend to move on DVCS. 
+Personally, if I know I can fork on a DVCS instead of from a "simple" VCS, 
+I'll probably be quicker to fork/clone, and to publish changes on my own copy,
+than if I had to do so on the upstream repository (and I'll likely dont have 
+the rights to push to it), because I will not be afraid to break things.
+
+DVCSes makes the contribution easier.
+
+Release early, release often
+============================
+
+Maybe have you read `The cathedral and the bazaar
+<http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/>`_, by Eric Steven Raymond ?  
+(If not, consider doing so, it's a really interesting reading)
+
+Among a lot of others interesting things, one hint he gives is *release early, 
+release often*. 
+
+I understand it as: if you want to get contributors, release your code early, 
+even if it's not perfect, and don't be afraid to publish your changes each 
+time it's needed.
+
+Without notifying it, that's basically what I was doing for my own projects.
+I guess that's because Social coding platforms encourages those practices, 
+partially cause of the possible impact publishing each of your changes can have
+on your final solution.
+
+If you have considered publishing your projects, code snippets, or whatever 
+(code related) but did not done it, considering them not yet ready, maybe 
+should you think about it twice: you can get feedback and probably start some 
+interesting discussions about it, if you write code that's readable, of course!
+
+A step further for open source softwares
+========================================
+
+Well, DVCSes are a honking great idea, and they're starting to be really
+powerful when applied to free softwares. I mean: if you can't see a project,
+it will be hard to contribute to it. And, I don't think anyone wants to
+contribute to something closed/proprietary, *just for fun*. Or maybe am I
+missing something.
+
+Maybe it's a kind of revolution, about free and open source softwares (FOSS_),
+that is going on. I really like to know I have my word to say about the changes
+in the tools I use, and to know that I can make them evolve.
+
+Let's take an example. Imagine I'm using a web framework on daily basis, as a
+part of my job as a web developer. I do like using an open source software
+because I know how it's working, and because I know that I can interact with the
+authors of the framework while they're doing the changes on it.
+
+That's communication, nothing more, and of course I can do that with an internal
+proprietary solution, but it will cost me **a lot** more time, for a dead-simple
+reason: a company is not as big and powerful as a community can be: it will cost 
+time to work on this framework, resources to maintain it, fix bugs etc.
+
+Well, I'm starting advocating here about Free and Open Source Softwares use on 
+companies, what is a bit beyond the scope of this article, so let's back to 
+our DVCSes and new social related tools.
+
+If I find a bug in this framework, while working, I have the possibility to
+go and talk with the creators of the framework, to open a ticket, and even to
+make a fix for it, because I've access to the source code. If I want to create a
+new feature, I just have to fork it, hack it, and then publish my code to have
+feedback of the community.
+
+My fix/work will benefit to all the people (and maybe others companies) working 
+with this framework, and it's a way to prove the community that my company is 
+enough skilled to make code-fixes to the framework, so that's all good !
+
+What's next ?
+=============
+
+I hope those social coding platforms are only the begining of a new area. I hope
+they will make people realize what the power of the community is, and how easily
+they can becomes part of it.
+
+If you're not using them right now, maybe you should do so: have a
+look on how the programs you're using are made, consider publishing your
+experimentations, and share them with others, you will see, it's kind of
+addictive !