Season 1 — Episode 6

I hope to see you in Budapest, 4-5 June.

Contributor Summit is just around the corner and we can't wait to catch up with you. Budapest will be beautiful in June and we've got two days of workshops, collaboration, hacking, and discussions on the present and future of Puppet projects lined up for you. For some of you, this will be the first time we've met face to face, and that's pretty exciting!

And don't forget, Project Month is going on right now, and you'll have the opportunity to present your work at Summit. Maybe you'll even attract some contributors to help you out!

We realize that international travel might sound like it requires sacks of cash, but since hotel and food are so affordable in Budapest, the total cost of the trip might be far less than you expect. Try a few searches on your favorite travel website to see for yourself!

Don't forget to show up the evening before for the Vox Pupuli pinball party!

Join the Puppet Community on Slack

Transcript

AndrewHey everyone welcome to today's podcast episode. I am Andrew Nhem, managing editor of puppet.com. My guest today is Ben Ford, principal software engineer and developer advocate here at Puppet. Say hello to everyone, Ben.

BenHey Andrew, how's it going today?

AndrewIt's going all right. We thought we had summer here in Portland but the rain came back but I'm cool with that because it's Portland.

BenIt was a false summer, false start.

AndrewYeah, false start, false start. Well, we'll get there. We'll get there soon. Today's episode is pretty darn cool. We're talking about the upcoming Contributor Summit 2019.

BenYeah it's definitely a thing. It's kind of been consuming my whole life for the last couple of weeks we're coming down to to the very end here. We'll be in Budapest, which the weather they're supposed to be a little bit like Portland I hope maybe it'll be a little bit warmer by then because we've got a lot of things planned out over there. I'm gonna do a 5k run alongside the event and there's some bike tours and some other fun things outside.

AndrewWow. Are you running a 5k to power the event, like on a treadmill?

BenYeah we'll hook up a treadmill like and that's what's going to power our network.

AndrewAre we gonna livestream that? Can we? Our producer's shaking - er, she's nodding. She's nodding. That means it's a go. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. For folks listening in who don't know what Contributor Summit is, can you tell us a little bit about it?

BenYeah, so this is kind of in a way our very first Contributor Summit ever because in the past this has been attached to PuppetConf. And we are doing an experiment this year. We've kind of separated those out and what was PuppetConf in the past will be Puppetize PDX here in the fall in Portland. But this part - the Contributor sSummit we're doing that in Europe. This is our first Contributor Summit over in Europe. People over there have been asking for a very, very long time for us to to do some more events over there. We'll be in Budapest, like I said the first week of June and it's a pretty straightforward format. It's not going to be talk tracks the way that people are used to with conferences. It's going to be focusing on collaboration. So if you've ever gone to a Contributor Summit in the past you'll remember that like we had Eric stand up and talk about Bolt for example and there were a few other things where people gave presentations on the main stage but most of it was literally working with your peers, working with puppet engineers, and hacking on things, trying out new things, helping us sort of roadmap the future of different projects, and just collaborating with other people in the community. And we're really trying to keep that tradition real strong here. And we've got workshops on lots of the different products we've got going, lots of brand new projects and we've got plenty of time in the schedule for you to even bring your own. So if you have a project you want to share with people, we'll have slots in there you can just put in your workshop. And we've got lots of hack time, most of the second day is more or less free hack time.

AndrewThat sounds wonderful. It's great that it's a love letter to our European fans out there and it's great that the dial is turned more toward hands-on workshops, being able to meet and greet with like-minded folks, hack on your favorite Puppet project. That sounds amazing. I think it's exactly what the people have been clamoring for.

BenAbsolutely. I mean it's it's great and all to sit in an audience and listen to somebody talk but it's even better if you can get your hands dirty and try out the thing that people are talking about on a similar note.

AndrewI'd love to hear more about how people can participate. Where can they check out the projects in flight, pitch their own, join someone else's... where can we get more information?

BenSo if you go to the Contributor Summit web page, and we've got a short URL pretty easy to remember: pup.pt/cs. It'll tell you all about it. We've got Project Month which is a way that you can start participating right now. And then there's also instructions and there's an agenda and kind of instructions on how to get started thinking about what sort of workshops you want to do and maybe some lightning talks you'd like to deliver. If you want to get started right now the Project Month is basically the full month of May. If you have something that you would like to contribute to sort of the world of DevOps - doesn't even necessarily have to be completely Puppet-related, just something that people in this space would find useful. Just sign up there, tell us what you're working on and kind of collaborate with us a little bit over the next month. We've got office hours running. We've got some different tutorials up and we've got engineers who are ready to answer questions if you need help getting started with like maybe the resource API or something. And then at the event itself I'll kind of run through all the projects from that month and describe them and tell everybody about sort of the outcomes, what people were able to build and put together. If you're at the event itself then you'll be able you'll have an opportunity to like stand up and pick your your project right on the main stage.

AndrewThat sounds great and I want to emphasize a couple of things that I heard out of that. As of recording this episode, we're halfway through May but as we all know projects never really end. So don't feel afraid to kick up a project now, pitch it, get some support, get some engagement. This is the reason why this event exists.

BenIn all honesty what we what we're hoping comes out of Project Month is not just one month sprint and get something done, but a month sprint to get started on a project and get the first release out there for something that'll be sustainable so that you can continue working on it. You can continue building it maybe next year you can tell us something about it that's even bigger and better.

AndrewRight on. The other thing that I heard out of that was also a huge nod to an inclusivity. One of the best parts about Puppet is that there are so many different ways to contribute, whether you're a documentarian, whether you have more of a UX / user user experience bend. Anyone can contribute, design. It's great in that Puppet projects are so inclusive in that regard and I hope that we invite a lot more folks who want to contribute more than code to the Contributor Summit and overall to our greater community.

BenSo one thing that we're trying to really emphasize now - the word contributor is often thought of as being just like somebody who contributes code and that's true. It's like that's one of the ways you can contribute, but there are tons of ways you can be a contributor and participate in this community. If you contribute docs. If you file issues and help us fix things. Even if you just show up in Slack and help people answer questions. Or even just help help people clarify the questions that they're asking. All of these are ways to contribute.

AndrewWell said my friend I'd love to hear more about the venue. Where are we holding Contributor Summit this year.

BenSo I don't really know a whole town about the venue, but the pictures that I've seen are absolutely gorgeous. It's in the Budapest Music Center and it's basically it's like right downtown. It's just a block or two off the river there and all the pictures that I've seen just make me want to just like like wander around and just look at everything. And the space itself, the city and the neighborhood, there's so many things to do there. It is kind of crazy. I was going through a kind of a one of those travel guides to Budapest and trying to find out some of the fun things that we could do alongside the event and they've got everything from like boat trips on the Danube. I think that's how it's pronounced. And like tours and wine tastings and they've got the ruin pubs which is basically the idea of like putting together a bar in like a brand new upscale like really cool hip bar in the middle of a burned out hulk of a building. It's kind of alien to me but I'm like I want to go experience this it sounds like so much fun.

AndrewYeah. There's no better form of getting drunk than to drink anachronistically.

BenBudapest is really known for its spas. They've got apparently like this whole range of like spas - indoors, outdoors, hot, cold, whatever kind of a public bathhouse you want. And there's even this thing - you can sign up for a bike tour. So you rent a bike and you get a travel guide, like a tour guide to take you around and tour the city and all the historic spaces and eat goulash along the way. So it's like a goulash bike tour of the city.

AndrewFueled by goulash. I can get behind that.

BenI'm pretty stoked. That's definitely one of the things that I'm setting up for.

AndrewWhen you power the entire Contributor Summit on the...

BenOn the treadmill. It's going to be goulash power.

AndrewYeah, you're powered by goulash. That's what I like to hear. Powered by goulash and beer from the ruins. I see. And apparently we need to make sure according to the recent blog post by Deepak and Nigel we gotta make sure we say it Budapest (Budapesht).

BenBudapest (Budapesht). Apparently I mean I don't know. We could probably put the two of them in a room and just like have them bounce back and forth. Then maybe that's what we could power the treadmill with.

AndrewYeah. Or at least have it be the keynote for the event just two Puppet folks arguing for an hour. Unprecedented.

BenThat'd never happen.

AndrewI've heard rumors of an amazing pinball museum. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

BenSo Vox Pupuli is our our community group. They are honestly pretty amazing. They maintain a huge number modules and they maintain an incredible velocity, keeping our community running. And kind of as a thank you to them we're helping them to host a party at the Budapest Pinball Museum. So the night before the event on the 3rd, we've rented the whole space and we've supplied drinks and snacks and all of that kind of stuff, you know the things you do at a party, and left it open for them. I don't know what they're going to do in the event. Tim's been talking about some really neat ideas maybe some like hack sessions right in the pinball museum, some prizes for reviewing PRs, but I think honestly the thing that's gonna happen the most is a lot of pinball going down.

AndrewYeah. Hacking on a pinball machine. Probably not. You get kicked out for that.

BenSomebody's certainly going to try though.

AndrewUnless you're here at the Portland office where folks do hack on pinball machines. But that's another story for another time. So I'd love to know Ben, as developer advocate as beloved community member, what is the biggest thing you're looking forward to this year at the Contributor Summit?

BenIn all honesty, the thing that I'm most excited about is the fact that I just got my daughter's passport expedited and so she's going to come with me. This will be her first international flight, which she has no idea how long this is gonna be, but she will in a couple of weeks. She's really excited to see someplace that she's never been before. She's even put together a like a shared note that she's like a list of all the fun things that she wants to do in Budapest. Of course there's no words on it is just pictures. So there's like 13 pictures of things that she wants to go see and do. So I'll have to do a little bit of sleuthing and figure out what those pictures actually point to.

AndrewThat's a pretty cool game. That is wonderful, Ben. All right everyone, so you've got a bunch of details from Ben Ford, developer advocate here at Puppet. If you'd like to learn more, where can folks go?

Benpup.pt/cs or they can hit me up on Slack - I'm binford2k. Ask me any questions you've got or even just drop in to the Contributor Summit room and see who's going and what else is happening there.

AndrewSo for everyone listening or who's decided to participate and listening at the end of this podcast, Ben give them the rundown of Contributor Summit 2019.

BenContributor Summit 2019 in Budapest. This is the first ever standalone contributor summit. We really really want to see you there. This is going to be amazing and Budapest. First week of June - 4th and 5th and we're kicking things off with a pinball party the night before and Vox Pupuli would love to see you there.

AndrewVery awesome. And if you just started paying attention it's mid-May. May is Project Month. Get those projects rolling people. We want to thank you all for listening as always, and we're signing off.

BenAnd I'm really excited to see what we put together here.

AndrewRight on. Thank you so much Ben. Take it easy everyone.