GitLab Meet the Tanukis, 15 Sep 2021

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From YouTube: Meet the Tanukis 1.5 Christos Bacharakis

Description

In this episode of Meet the Tanukis, we talk with Christos Bacharakis, Code Contributor Senior Program Manager at GitLab. We talk about how to contribute to GitLab and the upcoming Hackathon!

Links:
Hackathon! - https://about.gitlab.com/community/hackathon/
Contribute to GitLab - https://about.gitlab.com/community/contribute/

Free Licenses for Education/Research Institutions! - https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/

Content:
1:44 - Pj!
2:00 Name dropping famous DevRels (Chloe Condon's Beep Boop intro video - https://youtu.be/BcRXVq6cYl4?t=72)
4:18 Christos! (with a theme song! lol)
5:15 Intro to Christos
6:10 Christos' Travels
8:23 What is a Senior Code Contributor Program Manager?
9:36 How to Contribute! (https://about.gitlab.com/community/contribute/)
11:37 Hackathon! (https://about.gitlab.com/community/hackathon/)
14:25 Prizes for Hackathon participants!
17:18 Why contribute to open source?
18:50 Hackathon Office hours and Gitter room
22:31 13-year-old contributors! Everybody can Contribute!
23:48 Final Words.
24:46 Outro video

A

A

I'm in love with it. I I honestly like when I first made the video I sat around and listened to the song over and over and now I'm addicted to it. It's almost as good as chloe condon's, uh beep boop video, which, if you guys aren't following chloe condon. I don't know how you're following me and not her whatever, but she found a song. That sounds almost exactly like the intro to a 1990s sitcom and there's a saxophone solo, there's a guitar, so it does everything my song's good.

A

She got to that other one. First, welcome to part two of the doubleheader. uh My name is pj metz welcome to meet the tsudukees. We are talking to a second get lab team.

A

Member y'all are so lucky, you get not one, but two fantastic people who are here to talk about some amazing things we just finished talking to michael michael friedrich, came through and told us about his journey and what he does, and especially some of the things he talked about was the idea of of creating something new by learning it like don't, go, learn it and then say and later I will create it's learn it and as you're learning create and go in with the expectation that in learning this new thing and doing this new thing, this difficult thing, you're gonna, find uh ways to understand it that other people don't have, and you can help those people understand it, and he talked about how he started out with git lab as a contributor, not as a team member, and so his contributions eventually led to him working for the company, and that brings us with a nice little segue into what this next stream is going to talk about, which is contributing to get lab and there's a great event coming up and to tell us all about it.

A

We have today on the show another fantastic team member of mine. I promise not like everyone. I bring out, I'm gonna be like they're the most amazing, but honestly this person is one of the most amazing people. They are doing so many amazing things for git lab they're living an amazing life. I'm gonna make him talk about like his travels too, because, like I'm, jealous I'm jealous of what christos gets to go. Do, ladies and gentlemen, and non-gendered non-binary people, let's bring to the stream christos.

A

B

Hey hey, how are you thanks.

A

For having me I'm doing great, that's the song, I just wrote for you by the way.

B

I was listening to the intro and I was like I was like okay. He said it's gonna take about a minute and I'm like okay. Can he extend it for a bit more? I really love the song. I really really love the suckers. Like I was dancing. I was enjoying it. It really.

A

I I posted this show. You are, I think, my uh my sixth person that I've hosted on this show on meet the tanuki's and every time I play that video when I'm in the background I'm going and like dancing around, and I can't help it. I have to move.

A

I love it. I love it. I love it good job, great job, welcome I'm! So I'm so thankful that you were able to come on this stream, and I know we've got some stuff to plug. First, you have to tell us about yourself. What's your deal.

B

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A

That's your thing: I'm going to stream y'all thanks for coming. I appreciate it.

B

Yeah, I'm christas, uh I'm greek, uh living in berlin. uh For the past years, I've been involved to open church for quite a long time, always amazed by the community. I really love basketball, any basketball fans out there. You know um and generally tech, I'm like I'm generally into everything, tickling hacking, stuff, you know whatever it can be modified, changed or advanced or evolved. You know I'm generally into into that as well in open source, so yeah. This is uh pretty much about me.

A

Awesome- and I I said I was gonna, make you talk a little bit about travel, so greek, you said living in berlin over the past four months or so you've been a few different places other than berlin. What, where have your travels? Taking you.

B

Yeah the thing is that, um thanks to the thanks to gitlab, you know we are remodeling companies, so it's really easy to be to visit new places and to work from amazing locations. uh So I had the opportunity to join the digital nomads in madeira for more a month more yeah more than a month. uh It's an amazing initiative trying to restart the life. The tour started as an initiative.

B

To start they started tourism, madeira, but ended up liking, an amazing uh initiative bringing a lot of digital moments in the island, people like-minded people working together. There is a free, co-working space. There was one now there are around five around the island, so I had the opportunity to yeah to work with like-minded people. Do activities have workshops, skill building workshops, talk about public speaking, do yoga meditation. You know it was.

B

It was like living a dream uh to be honest and yeah, and I was like to get abundance of the fact that I can work from anywhere and then I continue exploring um the world, specifically uh greece and some of the nomads joined um in the greek islands. So it's just like yeah. uh I could not ask for more, you know combining just like uh work and at the same time, amazing uh landscapes, so yeah.

A

Yeah, I don't know you sure you wouldn't prefer to work in an office uh in a cubicle where you just maybe not. Maybe the view of the beautiful uh azure blue ocean is better than a poster. That says like hang in there and it's got a kitty cat on it.

B

All right, to be honest, I would love to be in a space with you and the rest of the team right for some time.

A

For the whole year, what contribute was supposed to be, but we can't quite get together um yeah. So if I.

B

Miss people there are co-working spaces. You can go to working spaces, though yeah.

A

B

I know a co-working.

A

Space is something I thought about, but they said I couldn't bring all my decorations, so yeah.

B

A

Decided I'll stay here.

B

A

I have too many colors going on behind me and then I threw a hawaiian shirt in front of it. uh I need to reconsider my wardrobe choices so uh christos. um What's your what's your title at gitlab, what is it that you work with at gateway.

B

um I work into uh helping code contributors contribute to gitlab, so my my role is like senior contributor program manager. The idea is that I'm responsible for the whole journey when you want to contribute to gitlab from the point where you identify some to work on up to the point for finally having an mr um submitted and nmr merged, I'm responsible for this experience trying to work with teams at gitlab trying to work with contributors to bring the best uh possible experience for for everyone.

A

That's fantastic so like, if someone's like out there on twitter or out there in the in the internet, they're like man, I like I want to contribute. I want to contribute code specifically. I think I have a great idea. I don't even know where to start you're the person to start with you like if they find you that's the end, that's how they can start working contributing to gitlab.

B

Let me can I quickly sell on my screen, would it be possible.

A

Yeah I share your screen and I can throw it up absolutely.

B

Perfect so reaching out to reaching out to me won't be scalable for.

A

Sure everyone, email, christos and oh.

B

A

B

Than happy to help, um the idea is that we want to improve the journey as much as possible. So you don't need to need someone. You know a lot of help. So if you can see my screen, uh this is the contributes for gitlab. um Here you can find all the necessary information. You can start from development from documentation, translation, ux design. Even engagement is something new that we have introduced and by following the clicks, you can find all the necessary information, for example, for development. You could click here. You can find all the different.

B

The things with gitlab is that it's not only one product people think that hey it's one project, it's one product! No, we have. There are a lot of smaller projects within gila. There is the runner omnibus chart development kit, guitar a bunch of different um cases. They have different technologies. For example, the pages have go, there's a lot of good language. Lately, project go projects uh lately, so in this really nice table you can find all the projects contribute to.

B

You can find the technologies and the languages that you this project require the guides for setting up the development environment and also some links to uh easy issues. To begin with, you know all of our product managers and engineering managers a really good job tagging. Some of the issues for accepting marriage requests that are a bit tailored for the community are issues that are well more well documented uh and they want to share them with community, so they can pick them up and contribute to them. So yeah, it's um easy as that.

A

That's fantastic and I love like how well organized that is where it's like: hey, here's, the language, here's what we're looking for and then specifically at the very end, here's a literally a place that we need some help right now or that you can start contributing immediately links to issues. That's a great way to do it. Now we got this event coming up this hackathon right and it's all about getting the community involved and getting people to participate.

A

So I'm going to share your screen again and you can tell us all about this hackathon, I'm very excited.

B

Yeah, um so every quarter, uh every three months we're on a hackathon here at gitlab uh we're trying to we're trying to sorry the goal for this hackathon is to have people commute, as is as possible, so on top of the contribute guide that we have. We have also a selection of issues here uh that are handpicked by our community, that by our kid lab teams- and we want to our community to to go youtube. So it's really simple. The hackathon is only two days.

B

uh Let me go back to the link uh starts on that between the 22nd and the 23rd of september. It's local time based which means that, for example, I'm right now locate located in greece. It's 5 00 p.m. In the afternoon this the hackathon for me starts on the midnight of september 22, which in the united states it would, it will be some time.

B

Maybe it depends where you are mid september 21st, so for me the hackathon might have started or someone or else haven't, but on the same time the hackathon form is gonna, sorry be completed earlier than the us. In any case, long term sword is like location based, which means that you have between the 22nd and the 23rd of uh september to work on something and open an emergency quest. You can spend time now um right now trying to figure out something to work on.

B

It's really easy here are the the important information uh you can identify an issue to work on uh either from one that it's here below, or we have a lot of other issues open here these that are linked here and same device. They give you extra points to when to win your amazing prices, I'm gonna talk about them in advance.

A

B

The idea- yes, I'm gonna talk about them in like 20 seconds, so the.

A

B

Okay, I go explore here some of the some of the epics. I found an issue that I'm interested in, for example, um there are linked. I can I can review some. Let's say I choose this one and I go leave a comment and say that hey, I would be. I would be interested working on this, so yeah a lot of diapers.

B

If I leave this comment now, it means that I want to work on this issue. I have as much time as I want today is that between the second and twent, the 22nd and the 23rd of september. This mr needs to be later, and then this amar needs to be merged uh until the 15th october. This is our job then, to do it, we're gonna make it happen, so you get the chance to collect points and win this amazing prices so prices. Let's talk about prices, yeah.

A

B

Every merch request: every merchant request that is being merged is gonna ship, a t-shirt. So if you open one request and it's burst, you're gonna receive a t-shirt perfect now, based on the number of mrs, that you have uh your that are merged and based on whether they they close. Some of these suggested issues. You're gonna collect some points in the faq, their detailed overview of the point system, but the people, because sometimes in the past we had more than one um person getting the grand prize. The people with them gathered points gathered.

B

They're gonna get this hackathon special swagbucks. If you can go on twitter and search for hackathon, gitlab and you're gonna see the latest uh swagbucks. It has everything from pants t-shirts, mugs bags, everything everything everything every every time we change trying to change it, so it gets more exciting and the people with us individuals with the most points. The second most points gathered after their grand prize um they're gonna receive coffee canister.

B

You can it's like a coffee canister to put your coffee grounds or you can use it for other stuff, spices or whatever, and the public charging pad. You can charge your wireless wirelessly, your wallets, you can your phone anything that you can be charged wirelessly, so yeah. The idea is that everyone can contribute. Everyone will get something a t-shirt, and then we try to device other contributions for people to get the them really. Nice prices.

A

That's fantastic and so like when we're looking at uh these, mrs and.

B

Mr for those of you.

A

Who aren't in the know, that's a merge request and that's saying I've got this piece of code. I think it should work in here. You explain why uh that's a big thing with mrs a lot of times. They say this is what it does cool. Why is this mr needed? That's the important question to answer when you're doing these merge requests, but it's exciting that it's all kind of laid out for people. You know if you've got some experience in these languages, go to the hackathon.

A

Even if you're new go like what's what's the heart, we're not going to put the code in if it doesn't work, don't worry, you know you're not going to break anything which the first time I did an mr, I was terrified. It said, come back, remember I'm afraid of commitment. I'm not sure that this is a good idea, um but yeah just you're just saying. I think this is a good idea and then people review it it's up to them to actually merge it to actually put it in the code base. Everyone can contribute.

A

Everyone can come and be a part of this hackathon we're looking for it. It's really a way for you to get involved with get lab and to become a part of this community that we want to curate.

B

Let me um and also let me um just add something here. um So people always ask me: you know why to contribute, why to contribute to git lab why to continue to open. First, it's like it's a question that everyone's like. Oh, I don't get anything as a reward. I mean the swag that the prices is incentive, but the true value of you know contributing is that we get experience.

B

This is how I got started, for example, suddenly, from a person a greek uh 18 year, old guy who were living in thessaloniki, was suddenly part of a larger super, diverse and inclusive community of five thousand people, maybe to the federal project, and I felt I felt really good, because in the past ten years I managed to evolve my skills build a career by contributing to insurers. You know get more skills, advance and all of this open source communities and projects. They also want the contributors to advance the skills as well.

B

So we're trying to do our best to um give you opportunities to do that. So, for example, right now we have strike for prices, but we're because we're considering in the next hackathon to have some contribution opportunity. Sorry, some certification or training opportunities for people that they can take a course and they can and they can work on stuff they can improve their skills, so yeah and also, while you're in this process, this journey for of contributing, especially the eat club. We want to have all this opportunities for you to feel supported to feel empowered.

B

So that's why we have uh channels if you, if I can, share my screen um really quickly, especially during the hackathon uh we have like, we have a guitar room. It's like it's like where the community meets every day. You can reach out to us most of the of the kid lab team members are also there. They can get support and also you are during the hackathon we're having right now. There are only two sessions, but we're gonna have more. um I promise we're gonna two more of it. Every day it's gonna be office charcoals.

B

Whenever you want to to reach out to have any question like any question you can reach out. You can dialing or you can reach out uh through the sl through the chat with questions or with anything, and uh let me also something extremely important. We are enforcing our community kind of contact onto throughout the whole event. We want to build a safe, inclusive environment for everyone, so we're always monitoring all these channels, issues and emerging questions like for any.

B

You know uh behavior that doesn't fit in the culture of gitlab and it's not inclusive or any harassment or any hate speech. uh So yeah we're doing our best and we want you to feel empowered and uh safe to contribute to gitlab or general to open source, so yeah um feel free to join us it's next week, so micro.

A

Calendars yeah. I.

B

A

And also like, like the code of conduct, so important, making sure that people are uh being inclusive because sometimes when there's a large online community, uh some people can be kind of toxic and that's something that we're not gonna stand for, but the idea of being able to submit something and have code that you wrote be a part of the gitlab project and be a part of what uh we're doing it's exciting and exactly what you said.

A

Why contribute to open source, because it's practice, uh people who are learning the code, people who are trying to grow their skills, people who are trying to advance their careers? This is a great way to get those reps in and to really build your skill set by contributing to a project, and then you get to tell people. I had five, mrs merged, during a get lab. Hackathon.

A

Here's the mrs that I said, and you can show that to people to show exactly what you're doing it's just a great opportunity all around, and uh I'm super excited that we have this, and you said we do it. Every quarter.

B

A

B

Every quarter we're gonna. Do it one before christmas again in the beginning of december, and you know you said that if you don't, if you don't believe us about, if you will believe me or you regarding, you know what you get out of officers. You know in the previous session that you had with michael. You know he went through the whole uh his whole journey about how he started practicing while learning and then you know he is where he is because of all this. So yeah.

A

Yeah and really that's what it is, it's it's, uh it's bettering yourself and your skill set, and that's that's the reason that we host these things so that you can get better. I mean yeah, look, gitlab gets something out of it right, but like we're, opening it up and we're specifically saying right here, we're pointing you right to the issue that needs someone's uh help and attention we're giving you swag one. Mr merge gets you a t-shirt and after that, it's a competition. I want that fabric uh charger.

A

B

A

B

Take your cars races, that's.

A

Right I gotta I gotta find out. I gotta find a place where I can contribute.

B

Yeah go ahead. Sorry, speaking of it's super I mean I remember like last during the last hackathon, uh a colleague reached out another gitlab team member and she's, like hey. If you, if you check this, mrs from my kids and their her kids, contributed in total something like 10 mars and they were like 13 and 16 years old I mean the the youngest one was 13.. I was like hell. If I mean I love it, I love it. I was like. Can I feature you in the hackathon?

B

It's like yeah people getting intimidated about how to get started. So that's why you're trying to make it as easy as possible so go follow the links. If you need any information reach out to us, we're more than happy um to help. You.

A

Absolutely and like listen 1316, everyone can contribute. We want you and, like kristoff, said we're trying to make it as easy as possible for you we're pointing you right to where we need the help. This isn't some. You know spaghetti code, open source where you don't know where to go and you're trying to ask for help. This hackathon is especially built to help you get involved. If that's what you want so come through september, 22nd and 23rd, correct.

B

A

Local time it's it's all on your local time, so.

B

A

Those mrs start, looking now and plan what you're gonna do and we're gonna see y'all then christos any final words. Anything you need to leave us with.

B

No, I everyone can contribute thanks for having me it's a pleasure, um it's a totally pleasure, uh I think you're doing an amazing job and also thanks everyone for tuning in um I'll, see you during the hackathon. You don't have to do anything to start working on these, mrs and london, between 22nd and 23rd of your local time zone and feel free to reach out during office articles officer times or uh through our git channel. So yeah see you around everyone.

A

Awesome we'll see you then thank you for tuning in for the doubleheader today folks, and we.

B

Will see you next.

A

Time on meet the tanookies.

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