our projects, in the future
apps workweek, toronto 2014
Soledad Penadés
Apps Engineer at Mozilla
- @supersole in Twitter
- #apps in irc.mozilla.org
Back in June 2013...
developer ecosystem
→ apps engineering
but we still <3 devs
more focused: help people build apps
give them software or good practices
Excellent software, no users/contributors = 😢
guidelines for successful projects
Guidelines
~test flight / checklist
make it open + get feedback
today
"module owner"
who to ask questions
who's responsible
Make projects visible
canonical place in the web
link from our team page
talk, blog, tweet, g+ about it
Your blog or Hacks blog?
Your blog for "work in progress", proofs of concept
Moz Hacks for finished projects, releases
Consider planets
Make projects usable
A repository of code is not enough
You don't learn to drive by looking at a car
Repository structure
dist/
examples/
src/
tests/
.travis.yml
CONTRIBUTING.md
LICENSE
README.md
README / website
- what the project is
- how it works
- current version + changelog + roadmap
- download
- communication channels (issues/bugzilla, irc, twitter)
README / website
Accessible English
E.g. Mª
CONTRIBUTING
- new branch → PR → dev → master workflow
- whitespace, jshint, etc
Make quality projects
master / dev branches
dev → master = stable
bump version number
blog about it, make noise
Tests
with node.js / headless is better
Examples
- At least one example that Just Works™
- Ideally they work offline (file:///), no build script required
New features must include
tests + examples + docs
Make projects community friendly
- "Not too little, but not too much"
- Clear communication channels
- convert to-do items as bugs, mark as good-first-bug if need be
- make list of bugs VERY visible
- respond to bugs in a timely manner
- be welcoming to newcomers
Better the ecosystem
Feed back to MDN
- updating existing pages
- creating new pages drawn from your experience
- tech writers are here to help you
Better the ecosystem
Improve the platform
- You'll find oddities
- Isolate them
- Ensure it's a bug,
- and if so... file them
- Test in various versions + browsers
- Master the art of the minimum test case
Better the ecosystem
Trying new features
- keep track of relevant umbrella bugs
- maybe explore the 'needs-app-triage' flag in bugzilla
- help get the weirdnesses fixed before the public stumble upon them
- friendly polite stubborness
- tests and examples are more convincing than 'bumping' bugs
In short
- Module owner
- Make projects visible
- Make projects usable
- Make quality projects
- Make projects community friendly
- Better the ecosystem