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<h1><a href=".">Alexis' log </a></h1>
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<header> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href=""
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rel="bookmark" title="Permalink to Fork you ! or how the social coding can help you">Fork you ! or how the social coding can help you</a></h1> </header>
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<div class="entry-content">
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<footer class="post-info">
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<abbr class="published" title="2010-11-05T00:00:00">
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Fri 05 November 2010
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</abbr>
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<address class="vcard author">
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By <a class="url fn" href="./author/Alexis Métaireau.html">Alexis Métaireau</a>
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</address>
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<p>In <a href="./category/thoughts.html">thoughts</a>. </p>
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</footer><!-- /.post-info -->
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<p>With <a class="reference external" href="http://github.com">github</a> and <a class="reference external" href="http://www.bitbucket.org">bitbucket</a> coming around, a lot of new usages appears for the
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developpers: it's now easy to get feedback on your code/modifications, and to get
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help from others by, for instance, forking repositories.</p>
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<p>Eeach time I see people helping others, I'm amazed by how we like to share
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our knowledge.</p>
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<p>I say github, because it seems to be the more mainstream, but I think it's
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something strongly related to the <a class="reference external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_revision_control">DVCS</a> principles: the "only" thing github have
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made is to turn that into a social network, and to reveal the awesomeness of the
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DVCSes to the masses.</p>
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<p>What is really interesting is to see how this platform is addictive: it's
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automatically updating a webpages with the more accurate informations about the
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projects you're involved in, and add a bit of magic to that using webhooks,
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allowing you to update your website each time you push to you repository, for
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instance.</p>
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<p>Quite nothing, indeed, but, I don't know why, I find this fascinating.</p>
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<p>I haven't had the privilege to see my projects forked from github by strangers,
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but I've forked others repository to give an hand some times, when I wanted to,
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and the main reason is "because it's <strong>fun</strong>" to do so.</p>
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<p>Yeah, you're probably right, you have to be a nerd to find fun to fork others.
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The good point is that geeks are a kind of nerds, and some geeks are coders :)</p>
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<div class="section" id="new-ways-to-contribute">
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<h2>New ways to contribute</h2>
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<p>In addition, it seems that he community, or the communities, are there, on those
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new social networks for coders. It's really handy to drop an eye on interesting
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projects, to report bugs, propose new features, and check what new projects this
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or this person have made.</p>
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<p>Well, "it's not new", you may think. That's true, because it's been a while that
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SVN was there and even CVS before that. But, it was a bit messy to "fork" a
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project, isn't it ? And I'm not talking about all the hell SVN involved with it
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(who have not had issues with those messy .svn folders raises an hand !).</p>
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<p>It have not been so easy to share code and thoughts about code, to propose
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changes on existing code, than now. You think it's better to implement this or
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that in a different way ? Clone it (fork it), make your changes and publish
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them, and then ask projects owners about it. For sure you'll have answers.</p>
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<p>Even if they don't want it, you can easily keep your changes, and keep getting
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their updates!</p>
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<p>Also, lot of <em>fashionables</em> projects tend to move on DVCS.
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Personally, if I know I can fork on a DVCS instead of from a "simple" VCS,
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I'll probably be quicker to fork/clone, and to publish changes on my own copy,
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than if I had to do so on the upstream repository (and I'll likely dont have
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the rights to push to it), because I will not be afraid to break things.</p>
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<p>DVCSes makes the contribution easier.</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="release-early-release-often">
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<h2>Release early, release often</h2>
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<p>Maybe have you read <a class="reference external" href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/">The cathedral and the bazaar</a>, by Eric Steven Raymond ?
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(If not, consider doing so, it's a really interesting reading)</p>
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<p>Among a lot of others interesting things, one hint he gives is <em>release early,
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release often</em>.</p>
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<p>I understand it as: if you want to get contributors, release your code early,
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even if it's not perfect, and don't be afraid to publish your changes each
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time it's needed.</p>
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<p>Without notifying it, that's basically what I was doing for my own projects.
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I guess that's because Social coding platforms encourages those practices,
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partially cause of the possible impact publishing each of your changes can have
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on your final solution.</p>
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<p>If you have considered publishing your projects, code snippets, or whatever
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(code related) but did not done it, considering them not yet ready, maybe
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should you think about it twice: you can get feedback and probably start some
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interesting discussions about it, if you write code that's readable, of course!</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="a-step-further-for-open-source-softwares">
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<h2>A step further for open source softwares</h2>
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<p>Well, DVCSes are a honking great idea, and they're starting to be really
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powerful when applied to free softwares. I mean: if you can't see a project,
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it will be hard to contribute to it. And, I don't think anyone wants to
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contribute to something closed/proprietary, <em>just for fun</em>. Or maybe am I
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missing something.</p>
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<p>Maybe it's a kind of revolution, about free and open source softwares (<a class="reference external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software">FOSS</a>),
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that is going on. I really like to know I have my word to say about the changes
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in the tools I use, and to know that I can make them evolve.</p>
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<p>Let's take an example. Imagine I'm using a web framework on daily basis, as a
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part of my job as a web developer. I do like using an open source software
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because I know how it's working, and because I know that I can interact with the
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authors of the framework while they're doing the changes on it.</p>
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<p>That's communication, nothing more, and of course I can do that with an internal
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proprietary solution, but it will cost me <strong>a lot</strong> more time, for a dead-simple
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reason: a company is not as big and powerful as a community can be: it will cost
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time to work on this framework, resources to maintain it, fix bugs etc.</p>
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<p>Well, I'm starting advocating here about Free and Open Source Softwares use on
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companies, what is a bit beyond the scope of this article, so let's back to
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our DVCSes and new social related tools.</p>
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<p>If I find a bug in this framework, while working, I have the possibility to
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go and talk with the creators of the framework, to open a ticket, and even to
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make a fix for it, because I've access to the source code. If I want to create a
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new feature, I just have to fork it, hack it, and then publish my code to have
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feedback of the community.</p>
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<p>My fix/work will benefit to all the people (and maybe others companies) working
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with this framework, and it's a way to prove the community that my company is
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enough skilled to make code-fixes to the framework, so that's all good !</p>
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</div>
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<div class="section" id="what-s-next">
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<h2>What's next ?</h2>
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<p>I hope those social coding platforms are only the begining of a new area. I hope
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they will make people realize what the power of the community is, and how easily
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they can becomes part of it.</p>
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<p>If you're not using them right now, maybe you should do so: have a
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look on how the programs you're using are made, consider publishing your
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experimentations, and share them with others, you will see, it's kind of
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addictive !</p>
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</div>
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</section>
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<section id="extras" class="body">
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<div class="blogroll">
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<h2>blogroll</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="http://biologeek.org">Biologeek</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://filyb.info/">Filyb</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://www.libert-fr.com">Libert-fr</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://prendreuncafe.com/blog/">N1k0</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://ziade.org/blog">Tarek Ziadé</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://zubin71.wordpress.com/">Zubin Mithra</a></li>
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</ul>
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</div><!-- /.blogroll -->
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<h2>social</h2>
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<li><a href="http://lastfm.com/user/akounet">lastfm</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://github.com/ametaireau">github</a></li>
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