Hard Lessons
The story of my (mis)adventures in SilverStripe education
By:
Aaron Carlino (a.k.a. Uncle Cheese)
unclecheese@leftandmain.com
@_unclecheese_
Beginnings
- In 2010, launched LeftAndMain.com
- A personal blog about my experience and contributions to SilverStripe
- A showcase for my modules
- Screencasting became a preferred medium
The Good
- One of the earliest thirdparty SilverStripe resources
- Relevant tutorials driven by case study
- Created a small exo-community
- Raised a lot of money!
The BAD
- Writing is like -- hard, bro.
- Lack of inclusion, e.g. user-submitted content
- No framework or methodology
The Renaissance?
- 2012: SilverScoop podcast hits its stride
- Web-based code education becoming more popular
- Where are the SilverStripe education resources?
- Offered up LeftAndMain as a stage
- Started a Basecamp project that day
- 4 Developers, 4 Continents
The Plan
- A full-featured, systematic approach to SilverStripe pedagogy
- Rich in screencasts
- Categorised by level, topic
- User-submitted tutorials
- User rankings
- Real-time application and testing of skills
The Result
(sort of)
Two years Later,
It's Still Just a flat Image.
What went wrong?
- A pathological obsession with features
- Prioritisation of minutiae over core product
- Driven by perfection, not utility
- Arbitrary and meaningless deadlines
-
Scheduling meetings to create the illusion of progress
FAILGILE
Waterfail?
The Re-Renaissance?
- 2014: Failgile ideology dropped
- Two-person team, achievable goals
- A real deadline
- 7 May 2014
What went wrong now?
- Not the code cowboy I used to be
- Unrealistic assumptions about time investment
The "Goal" COMPLEX
Got a goal? That's cool. Now shut up.
An opportunity
- SS.org makeover
- Iterative, but time sensitive
- Review of wireframes
- An invitation to join the team as an educator
Collision Course?
- Directly opposed to the new LeftAndMain effort
- But does that matter?
What to Expect
- Target the early adopter audience
- Lots more tutorials
- Rich screencast library
- SilverStripe podcast with guests
- More outreach from SilverStripe experts
- New and improved forum
- Taxonomy of community members
- Contests, events, and more community involvement
... And LeftAndMain?
The perfect role for a Fanboy?
- Blind love for a product is a death sentence
- In human relationships, you love someone unconditionally in spite of his or her faults.
- In open-source, you love a product in spite of its faults
- But you really hope someone submits a patch.
We want to hear from you!
- What types of resources, features, activities, events, etc., do you think would make silverstripe.org a better learning resource?
deck
By Aaron Carlino
