[pydata-outreach-staff] Clarifying the "workshop & sprint"

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Sun, 9 Dec 2012, Vid wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I had to answer this ...just this before I leave :)
>
> On Sun, Dec 9, 2012 at 7:41 AM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org> wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I was looking over the schedule at
>> https://github.com/svaksha/PyData-Workshop-Sprint/wiki/2012-NYC and was
>> wondering what the difference was intended to be between "Guided group work"
>> and "SPRINT time."
>>
>> Is the notion that in the "guided group work" time, people are strongly
>> urged to work together in small groups, and then at 3 PM, they're encouraged
>> (if they wish) to work solo?
>
> Yes, I assume Chang would like people to pick out bugs (even
> documentation bugs are fine) from the tracker and work on them - it
> being a  workshop for newbie contributors, we can learn to do bug
> triage, documentation and other smaller level tasks.
>
> Some background: Earlier, I had attended John Resig's JS workshop (just 
> to move out of my comfort zone - I dont code in JS) and I loved the way 
> he walked people through the language with examples etc.. Even if I dont 
> code in JS, I could easily pick up the logic and at the end, he built a 
> small app with the bits that he had walked us through during the day. I 
> like his approach to learning and building things.
>
> I dont know if the same approach will work with Pandas - the usecase is 
> entirely different, but my main goal was to make it easier to get 
> started - nicer when all in the same room than chatting over irc or 
> email, not that they are ineffective but when you are new, face-to-face 
> communication saves time and its faster to just ask questions, etc..

*nod*, will think about this part of the format more, and have more 
thoughts in a day or so!

>> We'll probably want to be sure to reserve some suitably substantial tasks
>> for the 3 PM portion -- not so huge as to require huge amounts of Pandas
>> knowledge, but not so small that one person can just do it by themselves.
>>
>> I'm a little confused that the "SPRINT" time repeats the
>> beginner-friendliness as if new people are expected to arrive just for
>> sprint time. Presumably we're not intended for more people to arrive at that
>> time, we're just re-iterating our commitment to make it a great experience
>> for beginners?
>
> I am not sure I understand the question.

I'll try rephrasing, but maybe it's a silly question.

I had trouble understanding the page, so I wanted to clarify: In the 
current schedule, we are asking all of our attendees to show up by 10:15 
-- is that right?

(I think that's totally fine; this is not a disagreement! I just wanted to 
make sure I understood what is written.)

-- Asheesh.