Re: [matplotlib-devel] SciPy 2013

[Benjamin R. <ben...@ou...>]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@st...>wrote:

>  I'm hoping to host a matplotlib sprint during the final two days of Scipy
> 2013 this year, and I hope to see as many as possible of you there.  I
> think it's also really important to bring new developers into sprints,
> because it's such an efficient way to get people familiar with the code
> base.
>
> It might be helpful to start brainstorming now about which projects we may
> want to tackle so that we can have as much in place as possible by then and
> hit the ground running.
>
> I've set up a wiki page here:
>
> https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/wiki/Scipy-2013
>
>
Getting a bit back on the original topic of the SciPy sprints, there are
some things I have learned from last year's sprints.  First off, there are
going to be a lot of newbies there who do not even have a developer setup,
let alone a source install of matplotlib.  Myself and a few other people
spent several hours fumbling around with getting the Mac users set up
properly.  With me not being a Mac user, I felt very helpless.  We need to
be better prepared for these users (as well as the Windows users).

Second, working on matplotlib isn't very "sexy" (at least, insofar as
working on ipython, or one of the scikits).  Most of the attendees are
specialized scientists who only cares enough about matplotlib to produce
"the plot" for their work.  Getting attendees to join your sprint is a hard
sell.  This is not meant to discourage you, but rather to help better frame
what the tasks and goals should be for matplotlib at the sprints.

I wish I was this prepared last year.  You are off to a much better start
than I was.

Cheers!
Ben Root