A few months back, while investigating the technologies I was less familiar with for a Python job that looked pretty cool, I finally got to properly discover Django.

Until then I thought that when I would finally get around to learn a new web framework it would be Perl based, but without any project I particularly cared about my attempts kinda kept fizzling out. I went a bit further with Django, likely because it's such a breeze to set up for development, and their website is awesome for those just starting out with the framework. They have all the buzzwords in all the right places, hint at all that's possible to do ("other batteries included", yes indeed!), but most importantly they offer a fantastic tutorial that showcases how powerful Django is, while not taking a huge amount of time to go through. Like I suspect most people, I was awed when playing with the admin site for the first time. Such a painstakingly repetitive part of any webapp... Now fun again!

Life got busy after this and I stopped poking around, but as soon as I got some breathing time an old idea popped back into my head, making my own website / portfolio for the stuff I care about; open-source, education, software development. And getting back to writing regularly so I can get better at it, maybe putting together tutorials about all the cool stuff I end up clashing against and figuring out.

After a month or so of fun with Django in the evening, here we are with version 0.1. It should be fun!

I'm interested into learning more about interface design at the moment (still collecting book recommendations!). This book was close-by so I started with it and it works very well as an introduction to the basic concepts (metaphors, affordances, etc) as well as giving real advice on how to design the workflow of an application, what to keep in mind while doing so and some more detailed tips along the way on topics such as colours or the best font to use in forms. As usual Joel's style is pleasant to read, which makes this a very quick read. I definitely recommend this book as an introduction or refresher crash-course on interface design, while keeping in mind that in the end this is still only a high-level view of the whole process. You'll want to read more to answer more detailed questions and concerns about UI and HCI.

Just because my own Googling wasn't particularly fruitful when I encountered the following error:

InternalError: current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of transaction block

Turns out I had forgotten to update my database and run a syncdb after adding a new module. Nothing in the traceback hinted at that module (the last line of my code it was failing on was context_instance=RequestContext(request) in the render_to_response call), and the new field wasn't directly referenced either.

My hope is that if I'd had DEBUG set to True the error message would have been more helpful, but because it was on a production server I was reluctant to start with that (I reverted the code to the old working version instead and started investigating).

Ship It! is a very pleasant read, presenting a lot of simple but powerful ideas on how to make the software development process run more smoothly. With no unnecessary complexity in both the writing style and the concepts being described, it becomes easy to see how and why the ideas fit together, how they would help improve the quality of the product and of the overall process, and because every tool or technique remain "simple" many actually feel implementable (because they are!). The book includes strategies on how to bring about a change depending on your position (dev, tech lead, management, customer...), and with everything neatly cut into small parts, none is overwhelming and you can plot how best to bring them to your shop.

Although it doesn't match exactly the chapter structure I'd say there are 3 main parts to this book: tools, project management, and a list of common problems with their solutions. Feel free to skim to that last part when getting the book if you feel the need for a little bit of hope but I would advise reading the book in order, because many of the suggested solutions won't make a lot of sense otherwise.

Overall excellent, the writing style makes this book a pleasure to read and doesn't distract from the content. I came away with a ton of ideas on how to improve things and remove some of the difficulties of the software development process that really don't belong, and I hope to be able to demonstrate some of them to my team soon.

Just found an awesome link about open-source in schools: http://opensourceschools.org.uk, thanks to the Ubuntu education mailing-list. I haven't had enough time yet to explore everything but this is exactly the kind of things I'm looking for, the case studies are really interesting -- and there's one based in Ireland as well!

I've been talking to people interested in bringing open-source and/or Ubuntu to schools, usually because of budget reasons. I think it's a fantastic idea and I'm happy to help wherever I can, and at the moment I'm looking for case studies on schools that did migrate to understand better the pain points and whether the outcome was worth it.

The first question people have been asking me is "Do you know of any Irish school that did this?" so in the hope of building a solid answer to that, although I do keep my eyes open for research from anywhere I'm trying to focus on finding local case studies first if they exist. I think it's reassuring to know that a school just like yours, a county down the road made the switch too.

  
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In the midst of reports on what happened at Linux.conf.au I saw this link:

NZ school ditches Microsoft and goes totally open source

The story itself is interesting but the background it provides on the deals between the government and Microsoft for education is particularly eye-opening. I was surprised, because I remembered that Mahara was funded partially by the Ministry of Education and so I thought NZ was way ahead of other countries in that regard.

I hope the LCA session on that school was recorded, I'd love to hear more about their process with regard to OSS, and get tidbits on the non-traditional pedagogy they're using and how the tech supports it.

This article is about a year old, but it doesn't matter:

(Diaries of a Core Maintainer #6:) A tale of two developers

Re-reading that story is always a bit scary and cause for self-reflection because my approach is so similar to Pat's, particularly when starting out with a new idea.

I could say I'm posting this now for people considering getting involved with an open-source project but afraid to jump in, or ask questions, or wondering if they're good enough, and that's usually what I send it to people for but... this time, what I really want if for more people to know about it, so they can send it back to me when I really need it! It's okay not to know everything or get things perfectly right the first time. It's ok to learn new things along the way.

For nearly two weeks, I've been sitting on a (tested!) Sugar patch because I don't fully understand the intricacies of "why it actually works" (xterm magic, there'll probably be a post about that soon!). I probably still would be digging into the entrails of xterm, tty and whatever other dead-ends I keep losing myself into for this bug, had someone not reminded me of this story. The patch is now submitted, right beside a comment explaining where I'm stuck and asking for help. Looking forward to the next step :)

And if you know why a xterm control sequence documented since at least 1994 could be sending back an abridged output on a different (but recent) hardware / software stack, please do let me know...

Today I started looking around for more research on schools using or migrating to open-source solutions and I'm finding quite an overwhelming amount of case studies (it's great! but difficult to review and digest) at all sorts of level (country-wide policies, city-wide, single school, county , district, area, state...)

Trying to keep to the data that relates to the UK and Ireland will not only be useful but simply make the search more manageable. It's still great to know all this is out there and I hope I'll find a way to benefit from it without having my head explode along the way. I think for the stories of failures I'll keep the net wider as well, I saw very few and there's a lot to learn from them (I found one).

Along the way I came across this fantastic letter from Peruvian Congressman David Villanueva Nuñez, written in answer to a letter from Microsoft Peru who was offended by a Bill enforcing the use of free (libre) open-source software in government bodies, back in 2002. The letter is available here. I wish I could be so eloquent, this is beautifully written and well-worth a read, the argument is rock solid.

Back to the topic of open-source in schools, here's what comes out of today's reading with regard to problems encountered.

Barriers to adoption

• (Re-)training teachers who already know Microsoft products
• Windows-only education software that's already in use
• "Students will have to use Microsoft software at some point during their life anyway"
• Guarantees, support

The counter-points: Teachers already have to retrain and update their course material with every upgrade of Microsoft products (that is usually accompanied by a license cost, if not a hardware upgrade when the OS needs to be upgraded as well).

Students should be taught to use software in general, not a particular branded product. Moving from OpenOffice to Microsoft Word and vice-versa shouldn't be difficult. Because it's in Microsoft's interest to release new versions regularly, the interface will change anyway so being versatile is important.

With regard to guarantees, I'll turn to the awesome Peruvian letter cited above, for a description of how the guarantees of open-source software and proprietary products are the same, if you pay attention to the EULA of the latter. Provided "AS IS." Support is necessary in both cases as well, open-source software usually lets you pick from a wider range of suppliers.

For #2 I haven't seen any specific software mentioned yet so it's hard to explore the problem more deeply. I need more information.

Failures

In the Peruvian letter, Microsoft highlights that similar initiatives have failed before, citing Mexico Red Escolar project. Dr Villanueva Nuñez answers that the main issue with their approach was that they only focused on the monetary savings and failed to account for implementation and maintenance cost. It's very interesting in the context of the letter because Microsoft themselves say that licence cost only accounts for 8% of the cost of purchasing software.  

I really want to learn more about that Red Escolar project. I think the name has been reused for an education portal since then and it makes it difficult to find information about that particular initiative. So far in English I've only been able to find reports on the announcement circa 1998, 1999 but no follow-up. I probably will have to brush up on my Spanish and go look around the source websites :)

I'm going to try to keep the information ordered neatly in a file or page, in addition to this blog. This will force me to stay organised and keep my sources straight. Today's findings started from a BBC article found through LWN, but I'm sure I missed a few references along my clicking and reading of the day. Writing this up properly as I go along will be very interesting (and right in line with my goal of writing more!)