Let's have public Git chalk talks (topic of the Git Contributor Summit 2021)

gistfile1.txt

This session was led by Emily Shaffer. Supporting cast: Ævar Arnfjörð
Bjarmason, brian m. carlson, CB Bailey, and Junio Hamano.

Notes:

 1.  What’s a public chalk talk?

     1.  At Google, once a week, the team meets up with no particular topic in
         mind, or a couple topics, very informal

     2.  One person’s turn each week to give an informal talk with a white
         board (not using chalk)

     3.  Topic should be technical and of interest to the presenter

     4.  For example: how does protocol v2 work

     5.  Collaborative, interactive user session

     6.  Helps by learning about things

     7.  Helps by honing skills like presentation skills

     8.  A lot of (good) humility involved. For example, colleagues who have
         been familiar with the project for a long time admitting they don’t
         know, or have been wrong about things. Makes others feel more
         comfortable with their perceived lack of knowledge

     9.  Could be good for everybody on the Git mailing list, might foster less
         combative communication on the list

     10. Might be a way to attract new people by presenting “old timers” as
         humble

 2.  Does that appeal to anybody else?

 3.  Ævar: I think it would be great, has been a long time we’ve seen each
     other, and already feels different

 4.  One thing to keep in mind: it’s hard to program on a white board :-)

 5.  Emily: some challenges:

     1. How often?

     2. What time?

     3. Probably move things around (because we’re global)

     4. Tech to use? Jitsi? Twitch? (Twitch seems to be particularly popular to
        teach programming)

     5. Figure out what topics to present

 6.  Ævar: does not matter what tech to use

 7.  Emily: some difference may make it matter: on Twitch, you can record, and
     they host recordings

 8.  One thing to worry about recording: people might be reticent to make
     public mistakes

 9.  It’s possible to do a Twitch stream, and not record it

 10. brian: maybe record it, but not keep the recordings forever

 11. People might be uncomfortable having their homes being recorded

 12. At GitHub, some sessions are recorded just so people from other timezones
     can watch later

 13. CB: would be a nice way to see the other contributors

 14. Really like the idea, hopefully won’t replace other things we do

 15. Emily: internally, often about patch series in progress (or not even
     started)

 16. So retaining recordings for long time makes even less sense

 17. Weekly might be too frequently, Monthly cadence sound more reasonable?

 18. Junio: not sure we want an official schedule

 19. Assumed this would be an extension of what we do on IRC

 20. Remember when Linus would drop in and talk about a specific topic in
     depth, was nice

 21. Now we have video

 22. Emily: I fear if we don’t schedule it, it’ll never happen

 23. Ævar: would like it to be organized, maybe try some schedule and then
     iterate?

 24. brian: if it is scheduled, I can put it on my calendar, otherwise might be
     hard to block the time

 25. Every two weeks would be fine, especially when alternating timezones

 26. Emily: who besides me wants to volunteer for the other timezone?

 27. Ævar: if you start a schedule, I’ll see what I can do

 28. CB: also interested

 29. brian: can do, but Toronto is probably too close to California time

 30. Junio: schedule should be put on https://tinyurl.com/gitcal

 31. Emily: how about using a Google Sheet just like for the Contributors’
     Summit?

 32. One advantage to decide the topic in advance is that people can decide
     whether to make time to attend, on the other hand people might show up
     with a polished PowerPoint, which is not the idea

 33. brian: we can try, and if it does not work, make it less formal

 34. Emily: pretty much got what I need to start this