[tpm] Hackathon or presentation format for Game Development with SDL perl

[Mike Stok]

On Feb 6, 2010, at 10:04 PM, Kartik Thakore wrote:

> Since this topic is split across some threads I decided to make a new one.
> 
> So is the hackathon for sure what we are going to do on the February meeting? Or does someone else want to do just graphics/GUI Perl presentation with me? 

My $0.02 is that you should do an introduction and there should be time at the end for the attendees to try getting a simple game going on Thursday.  If there is enough interest then we could think about organizing a Perl/SDL hackathon.

I think that there was misunderstanding about the term "hackathon", and maybe we (TPM) need to use a different term for a short "lab programming session". Usually hackathons are quite long sessions, and we would need to plan a little to make it a successful and rewarding event (location, supply of food / coffee / pop / beer...)

How does that sound?

Mike

> 
> On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 9:42 PM, Mike Stok <mike at stok.ca> wrote:
> 
> On Feb 1, 2010, at 9:21 PM, Abram Hindle wrote:
> 
> > Mike Stok wrote:
> >>    * How many people would be interested in hackathons?  Last year
> >>      Kartik mentioned he might be able to do a game hackathon In
> >>      February.
> >
> > I don't understand what hackathon means in this context. To me a
> > hackathon is a bit more than 2 hrs and it has people getting together
> > and hacking on one or more related projects.
> >
> > Maybe I misunderstood.
> >
> > If that is the case I propose bootstrapping such a hackathon with a bit
> > of a tutorial as a meeting. An interactive perl mongers where people
> > should bring and share laptops and hack at a tutorial game.
> 
> This is the plan. I have a brief walkthrough then we will make a simple 1 script game. And Mike is suggesting we do a real hackathon on a weekend after people had some time to play.
>  
> >
> > There is a possibility of a quasi-hackathon-type of meeting. The
> > presenter provides source code & maybe content. For instance Kartik's
> > game hackathon could also be spun as a meeting. If one made a tiny game
> > framework, like a boardgame/logic game or a pong like game or a breakout
> > style game or just a jumping scrolling platformer. Then allow room for
> > modifications. The meeting could be a walk-through of the some
> > possibilities. How small changes to rules can change the game, etc.
> >
> > This kind of meeting could bootstrap a hackathon ;)
> 
> Agreed!
>  
> 
> That's the kind of thing I had in mind.  There was a Ruby hackathon a while ago where we got some space off Tucows for a Saturday or Sunday and had agreed on a project before hand.  I think it lasted about 6 to 8 hours.  The thing I observed was that quite a lot of time is spent getting up to speed if people aren't familiar with the project, so some up front planning and preparation could have made it more effective.
> 
> If people have been to successful hackathons and have an idea about what to do and what not to do then we could avoid some obvious pitfalls.
> 
> Maybe a meeting which gives an overview of the material and what might be achieved would be step 1, and the hackathon could happen soon (inside a couple of weeks?) after that.
> Does anyone have a  
> 
> I think that 2 hours is a little short for a "real" hackathon, especially if there are setup wrinkles (e.g. no working network !)
> 
> Yeah the no network may suck.  Does any one any ideas of the venue for a weekend hackathon?
> 
> Kartik Thakore
> 

-- 

Mike Stok <mike at stok.ca>
http://www.stok.ca/~mike/

The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/toronto-pm/attachments/20100207/7d2b571c/attachment.html>