COSCon'18 (China Open Source Conf) wants to hold a Code + Learn Workshop about code-and-learn HOT 55 CLOSED

AFAIK there is no specific requirement for being a mentor. Normally it is just a Node.js collaborator as they have a deep knowledge in it. Anyone who calls them self an Node expert should be able to be a mentor.

I prefer to require that mentors be Collaborators because those are people that can help with the procedural parts (commit message formatting, filling out the GitHub template, answering questions about how to get a CI job kicked off or what the fast-track label on the PR means, etc.).

At a minimum, a mentor should be someone who has contributed to Node.js core. If they haven't done that, then there's not much sense in having them coach other people on how to do it. (This assumes that you're not doing a Code + Learn to improve non-core areas of Node.js. In that situation, the requirements change. But we haven't done that with the current format of Code + Learn yet.)

I'd also add that Collaborators are bound by our Code of Conduct in ways that maybe Rando Expert isn't. I don't know if there's a Code of Conduct for the larger event or not.

The task that the people solved were mainly easier ones for multiple reasons: a) everyone should have a good start and solving the task is good for that. b) it is not easy to find lots and lots of tasks that are intuitive for everyone. @Trott might have more reasons.

I'd add that for a first commit, it's good to focus on the process: Getting the commit message formatting right, making sure you run tests and lint, learning how to rebase and add additional commits to a PR if the person has never done that sort of thing, and so on. None of that stuff is REALLY HARD, but there is a lot of it so it's easy to miss things and get stuff wrong. By having a dead-simple code change to make, you stop worrying about understanding the code and focus on the process of submitting the pull request. Understanding the code is great for a second commit.

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I have their COSCon\ 2018\ (Eng).pdf and COSCon18\ Speaker\ Invitation\ (Eng).pdf. Where shall I put or upload them?

I think you can upload files on Github?

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I can't do it, I'm afraid, although this raises the point that we probably want to plan out what Code + Learn events the Foundation is going to send folks to for 2019 and request a budget. We did that for 2017 and it worked great. I believe we requested a budget for 2018 but all the planning kind of fell apart. It was mostly handled by @hackygolucky in 2017 (or at least she coordinated stuff to make sure other people did stuff?). We had four Foundation-sponsored Code + Learn events in 2017 and are having just two in 2018.

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Maybe I can be there, but I wonder if I should pay the travel fee by myself?

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@XadillaX I checked my name in the title as I plan to attend if things work out.

@BridgeAR since you plan to do the same, please check your name as well?

With that, we'll have atleast 5 willing mentors. Anywhere from 5-10 should be good enough for a smaller crowd, I think.

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I found an article about visas for Shenzhen on ICVS 2017's website, it may be helpful. For people who need a visa (except the visa on arrival from Hong Kong to Shenzhen) an invitation letter may be necessary.

https://icvs2017.ram-lab.com/attendee/visa/

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Here a brief summary of our call:

Participants:

• @tedliu1
• @XadillaX
• @BridgeAR

Main questions were:

• What is necessary to be a mentor
• How can we set something like this up for people who are not able to participate in person (both, mentors and attendees)
• What types of tasks are there
• Is there more C++ or JS knowledge necessary

AFAIK there is no specific requirement for being a mentor. Normally it is just a Node.js collaborator as they have a deep knowledge in it. Anyone who calls them self an Node expert should be able to be a mentor.

The main things mentors helped out with were building Node.js on various devices as people ran into issues compiling it. We ask participants to pre-compile Node.js but this is still the main reason for a slow down and where people struggle with.

The task that the people solved were mainly easier ones for multiple reasons: a) everyone should have a good start and solving the task is good for that. b) it is not easy to find lots and lots of tasks that are intuitive for everyone. @Trott might have more reasons.

So one of the most important things is to find enough tasks up front that everyone is able to solve and to have some extra ones that are a little bit more challenging. Each task should be unique so no participant has to worry about conflicts after opening the PR.

Older PRs from such events can be found here: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pulls?q=is%3Apr+label%3Acode-and-learn+is%3Aclosed

As can be seen, most of those only deal with JS code and not C++. But there is no specific reason for having either a JS or C++ focus and both could be propagated to the participants.

@tedliu1 also mentioned earlier more hackathon style events that took place in a purely remote fashion. It would be nice if we could set up something similar for some Code & Learn events in the beginning of next year. That way not every mentor would have to travel to china and could still help out by using Zoom or something similar. Details should follow when starting to plan that event.

I hope I summarized everything correct and provided enough information. If there is anything else open, please let me know.

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Oh, also: There's a lot of logistical challenges in running a Code + Learn, but the most challenging thing that I do is coming up with enough good first issues. (There may be other more challenging things, but if there are, someone else does them and I never have to be aware of them. Thank you, whoever takes care of things so I never have to!) And I think it's important to have someone who is experienced vet the issues because I have to imagine it's disappointing if participants submit pull requests and they all get rejected because of churn/git blame concerns or whatever.

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/ping @Trott @addaleax

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https://www.dropbox.com/s/m3i5nxvwhgaqb1k/COSCon%202018.pdf?dl=0

Here's the PDF. This is a Tentative Agenda.

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Any plan for this workshop or just reject?

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@addaleax @Trott Would any of you be available for this event?

I will be traveling for an entire month before that so I am not sure if I am up for another trip to Shenzhen. In any cases I think having a few mentors and a list of issues is enough to hold a code-and-learn?

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Depending on how good I get at it in Vancouver, I could help out with this, but even in the best case scenario I'd probably not be able to do it all by myself.

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This is only a week after Vancouver, and I think that’s going to impact this both in # of available mentors and how quickly we can get the PRs merged… I would not be available myself, no.

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I guess I could go there in case nothing urgent comes up for me. This will only make sense though if we are enough mentors on sight. @XadillaX is there an estimate of participant for the Code & Learn?

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Hi, This is Ted Liu from KAIYUANSHE. We did conduct the 2016 Node.js Live Roadshow Beijing, http://www.kaiyuanshe.cn/interexchange/193.mhtml, together with Node.js Foundation and Microsoft China. The person in charge was Emily Chen, who is a director of the board of KAIYUANSHE and also an Microsoft R&D staff.

It'd be great if you can conduct a Code+Learn session at the upcoming 2018 China Open Source Conference (COSCon'18, Oct. 20-21, Shenzhen, China). The audience size would be around 50-75 persons.

Should you have any questions, please do not hestitate to let me know. I can also be reached thru my email [email protected]

Ted Liu,
Co-founder & chairman of the board of directors, KAIYUANSHE | ASF Member

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The audience size mentioned above is referred to the Node.js C+L session at COSCon'18.

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@BridgeAR we can refer @tedliu1's reply.

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@Trott sorry to hear that. :(

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With that audience size we should likely need about ten mentors. Having less would be frustrating for the attendees.

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I guess an important factor here would also be if COSCon is willing to fund the travel etc. for the mentors or if it'll have to be done using foundation/corporate/personal funds.

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I think I can be there as a mentor.

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@ryzokuken We may have some limited travel assistance budget for COSCon'18 for 1 or 2 mentor(s). Alternatively, you may choose to downsize the C+L to half or less, i.e. 25-30 or so and find domestic mentors which we may be able to cover their travel.

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@ryzokuken Hey, how's @tedliu1's proposal?

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@XadillaX if we downsize C+L to a smaller group of interested individuals as @tedliu1 suggested, we could make this work with fewer mentors, which would be much easier for COSCon to sponsor and for us to organize.

I think we should talk to existing collaborators in China to see if we can get as many as we can there.

/cc @joyeecheung would you be free during that time period?

I'd also love to hear what @BridgeAR has to say because it'd be extremely risky for me to organize anything substantial without a veteran around.

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The main preparation can be done from anywhere and IMO the main point is to have enough tasks up front and enough people to help on sight. Besides that it is good to have a good introduction so everyone knows what to do and also some advice before the actual event online (e.g., it's quite important to have node pre compiled). We also have some pins for the first contribution and should get some those. AFAIK @Trott has those at the moment. For the mentors it would also be best to do a code review before the attendees open the actual PR and then immediately give a LG and start the CI if necessary and so on. That way we can handle the load easier and it's nicer for everyone.

@Trott you can probably best highlight points that I missed.

I am not sure where everyone is from. If we could get some more people in China itself, that would be definitely good.

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@starkwang @JacksonTian @MoonBall would you be interested in helping out as mentor at the code and learn?

There are also quite a few collaborators in Japan and more in India which is both much nearer than e.g., Europe or the U.S. even though I do not know if the flight prices are cheaper or not (but I guess they are). Should we ask some of those as well?

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I'm just working in Shenzhen so I'd like to be there. But I have no experience in C+L. Is there any guide for the mentor?

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@starkwang there's one happening at JSI in Vancouver, so I'm planning to get some hands-on experience there, you can do the same if you're planning to visit. If not, worst case scenario, I think we could setup a call or something and perhaps ask @addaleax and @Trott for advice?

Either way, I think you should totally come if you're free and wish to.

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i have submitted a talk, but no reply

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@tedliu1 @XadillaX I don't know the specifics of how visas etc. work in China, but if we're planning to pull this through (I think we already have the minimum number of required mentors and would hopefully have some more people chiming in), I guess now's the right time to start planning stuff and get all the formalities done?

@Trott is there someone from the foundation that needs to be informed of this in advance?

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@Trott is there someone from the foundation that needs to be informed of this in advance?

¯\(ツ)/¯

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Hi, May I suggest a quick chat over Zoom at a time convenient to those mentors who can come to sort things out? The link is
https://zoom.us/j/6669991980

My Wechat id is tedliu002 for those mentors in China who wish to reach out to me directly.

KAIYUANSHE has used our home-grown "Open Hackathon Cloud Platform" to host many online or on-site hackathons and C+L camps before. All front-end and back-end environment can be pre-installed and configured in advance so that attendees just need a HTML browser to do code-and-learn.

If some mentors cannot come, you may consider doing online mentoring.

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@peterremote1980 I checked the CFP submission site but didn't find your entry. Is it this link? https://www.wenjuan.com/s/mmmIRb/

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Let me introduce Frank Zhao @Frankzhaopku who is an experienced Node.js developer and he won a MSFT hackathon top prize with a Node.js-based application. Frank is also quite familiar with our "Open Hackathon Cloud Platform". He can be one of the mentor.

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@ryzokuken so we may keep touch with @tedliu1. Check the process.

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@tedliu1 I'm free for a quick chat pretty much all the time, @BridgeAR what time works for you?

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/ping @BridgeAR

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The date is coming, I think we should discuss it soon.

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@XadillaX if you and @tedliu1 are free on the weekend, I'm open to discussing today, otherwise let's just do it next week. I'll ping @BridgeAR elsewhere to grab his attention.

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@ryzokuken maybe we can choose a weekday. @tedliu1 how about you?

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I just set up a doodle for a call: https://doodle.com/poll/5duz2afq7q9agzb6

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would this afternoon, Beijing time, 16:00 or 17:00 a good time for a quick call at Doodle? If not, I'm open tomorrow whole day.

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Looking at the doodle it seems like tomorrow, Beijing time, 21:00 would be best.

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One bad news here. Due to excessive amount of call-for-paper submission, and there are more hands-on camps applications than we expected. The CFP review team has just approved and finalized the final agenda today and informed me that there is no more timeslot and space available for the Node.js C+L proposed. I guess that means we can only do it next time. Should you feel we should still talk tomorrow night (Beijing time), I'm more than happy to do so.

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@tedliu1 we could still have a call just to get aligned a bit for the next year. That way we might start organising it earlier and have a better overview of what is necessary.

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One bad news here.

Not exactly bad news, in my opinion. I'm glad everything worked out for you all. As @BridgeAR said, I'm happy to still stick around for the call to discuss plans for the next year.

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@tedliu1 @XadillaX I am not certain what conference calls work for you. Does hangouts work? Or do you maybe use Zoom?

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Zoom will be fine. Here is the link: https://zoom.us/j/6669991980
Let's talk tonight at 21:00 PM (Beijing time)

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Awesome! Talk to you later.

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If it isn't too small a task to get people motivated: adding comments (at least the top comments that explain the whole purpose of the test) to tests is always welcome and it's a good starting point to look into the API internals. Also a good starting point to add tests for more edge cases. And there are still a lot of tests without top comments. (Also personally I hope to see more of them so it's easier to go through CI flakes without spending too much time understanding what a random test is doing in the first place)

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Closing as COSCon'18 happened in the past, and a new issue is cut for COSCon'19 at #97

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