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blogging
Friday Sept 10th by midnight
The "open" in "Open Source" means more than just that the code is available. Real open source is open in terms of its process, too: open source is about working in the open. A big part of working in the open is writing about that work, teaching one another things we discover as we go, and helping to draw attention to important ideas. Writing is a major part of open source, and we'll use our blogs to write, discuss, debate, announce, plan, and learn.
Open source also values writing like this for the historical perspective it gives. Long after project or code decisions are made, we often need and want to go back and understand why things happened as they did. Blogging contributes to the historical record.
Finally, blogging provides a way to capture our hard work and contributions. When students are applying for jobs, it's helpful to have something they can point to in order to showcase their previous work. By keeping a blog now, you help build a record of your abilities, experience, and contributions.
Having your own blog will enable you to more easily join the global open source community. A blog gives you a voice, which you can use when and how you want.
You will be required to keep a weekly blog for the duration of the course. We'll use this blog to share what we're learning, discuss open source, submit our labs and releases, etc.
In this lab you will create, configure, and use your blog for the first time.
You can use any blogging platform or software you want, as long as it supports RSS/atom feeds. If you already have a blog, you're free to use it (skip to the next section). If you don't, there are a number of free, popular blogging platforms you can use:
Take a look at the different options and choose one you like. Create an account for yourself.
We will be using git and GitHub for all of our development work, and you need a personal account. If you already have an account, you can use that. If not, you should create one now.
Give some thought to your username, since you might have it for a long, long time. Also, spend some time customizing your GitHub profile. You want your GitHub profile to reflect who you are as a developer, since this is something many developers will look at when they first meet you.
GitHub users can star a repo (or developer), and these stars are used to show trends. The GitHub Trending page is an active list of which project repos and developers are getting the most stares.
Take a look at the list of Trending pages:
- Daily Trends - https://github.com/trending
- Weekly Trends - https://github.com/trending?since=weekly
- Monthly Trends - https://github.com/trending?since=monthly
Pick a project that interests you.
Open source repos on GitHub can be "copied" by you into your own account. We call this forking a repo.
Fork the repo you chose in the previous step. When you're done, notice the difference between the URL for your forked version, and the original.
NOTE: you don't necessarily need to work on this repo during the course. Forking the project doesn't oblige you to do anything.
Now that you have a blog, it's time to start writing!
Your first post should include the following:
- Introduce yourself. Why are you taking this course? What is it about Open Source that attracted you?
- Where are you? Lots of us had to move back home during COVID-19. Where are you working from this term (Toronto, South Korea, Vancouver, Brazil, etc)? How global is the DPS909/OSD600 community?
- What are you hoping to accomplish this term? What kinds of projects do you want to work on?
- What was the the GitHub trending repo you researched above? Provide a link and tell us about it. Why did you pick it?
Blogging platforms allow you to tag your posts (sometimes called a "category," or a "feed"). This allows you to syndicate (i.e., share) posts you've written on a given topic without also including others (e.g., you might want to write about "Open Source" and "Baseball" in the same blog).
Give your blog post a tag/category/feed (depending on the blog platform you're using) of "Open Source"
When you've finished the lab, please email your professor the following information:
- Name
- Blog URL
- Blog Feed URL (if using a category/tag, specify that). Please test your feed URL to make sure it works.
- GitHub Username
Once this is done, you'll be added to the People page, and your lab will be complete.
Once you've shared your blog URL with your professor, we automatically aggregate all the blogs of our students and faculty who are working on open source at Seneca, and publish it to https://telescope.cdot.systems/. In fact, Telescope is itself an open source project created by students in DPS909 and OSD600!
Every week you'll need to add new posts to your blog. Sometimes I'll tell you what I want you to write, but you're free to write about any of the work you're doing, your thoughts on the material, discuss things you're learning, etc. Use your blog to help you document your journey into open source.