OpenBSD Journal

u2k20 Hackathon Report: Tracey Emery on GotWeb

Contributed by Janne Johansson on from the web of game of gits dept.

Fresh in from u2k20 is this report from Tracey Emery, who visited the hackathon in Uckermark, Germany after getting invited by Stefan Sperling (stsp@):

Stefan Sperling and I started a discussion in November about a CGI program, which would work in httpd(8), use the Game of Trees library along with the kcgi library by Kristaps Dzonsons, to display repository information in a browser. I was getting frustrated with working on my own project and was looking for something else to hack on. So, I told Stefan that I'd take a crack at Gotweb.

Because of the work I was doing, Stefan invited to me the Uckermark for the u2k20 hackathon. It was my first invitation to a hackathon, so I had to go.

The trip in was long and the schedules were very tight. As I walked up the sidewalk to the Seehotel, I was greeted by familiar faces and many smiles from people I'd never met in person before. After a few more hours of figuring out rooms and where the hackroom was going to be located, it began. I was in a room writing software. It was a rough, first, 32-hour day, but the hackathon was underway.

On Wednesday, just before midnight, I imported a working rough-draft of Gotweb into the Got tree. Everyone took time away from their computers to have a little celebration. Thursday, after some discussion with Stefan, refactoring work began to make the code more readable and tighten up some of the functions. This refactoring work should be done very soon, which will allow for more features to be added to Gotweb, over time.

I worked primarily on Gotweb, but had a little time to break away and work on a patch for httpd(8), with some prodding and support from Klemens Nanni (kn@). Face-to-face collaboration helps to really facilitate quick changes in the hackathon environment. Having discussions with everyone about what they're working on and seeing and experiencing the excitement about everyone's work is intoxicating.

The Uckermark is a beautiful location in north east Germany. The accommodations by the hotel staff were amazing and the work and cooking done by our host, Thomas, was spectacular! Taking care of 14 ravenous humans is a full-time job. Thank you for putting up with us, Thomas.

The group of people I was with were warm and friendly, full of endless laughter, a perfect group for in-depth technical discussions, and instantly made me feel at home. Thank you all and thank you Stefan, for the invitation. I look forward to many more projects in the future.

Tracey Emery

Thank you for the report, Tracey!

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Comments
  1. By Solène Rapenne (solene) on https://dataswamp.org/~solene/

    Thank you very much for your report and for sharing the feeling of attending a hackathon :)

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