In Support of @Spaz

April 28, 2010 · ~300 words (2 min)
This post was written more than five years ago. I may still stand by it, but I may not. I try to grow as a person over time, and that inevitably means some of the stuff I wrote or thought before is embarrassing now, just like the things I write and think now will hopefully embarrass me in the future. I try to leave that old content up to preserve links and not pretend it didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean I still endorse it. If you’re curious whether I still stand by this post, the best way to find out is to just ask me.

I can’t believe I’m advertising here. OK, yes I can, but still. Makes me feel all sorts of cheap.

And yet, it feels right to give a shout-out to a group that’s already done so much for me, in a lot of ways. @funkatron and @ElizabethN are two of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve met. Despite my disgusting Javascript skills and my complete lack of experience with Git and Open Source development, they’ve both welcomed me and put up with my obnoxious questions on Google Talk, IRC, Twitter, and anywhere else I can find them. @ramsey, @wlturland, and @elazar have collaborated to make me feel welcome and involved, and have proven that getting involved in Open Source is one of the best choices I could have made.

Just last night, @wlturland and @elazar got into a conversation about me over Twitter based on my @spaz contribution. For the record, I’ve changed three files, added four methods, meaning support for one feature. I’m not exactly writing huge chunks of their codebase. But they make me feel involved, and I find myself wanting to contribute more. This is how FOSS is done, ladies and gents. It was mildly odd, getting mentioned by two people I had only heard of in passing and never interacted with directly, but I got over it rather quickly.

Really, all this post is meant to say is that @spaz is an awesome experience. May 8th is an IRC hackathon on freenode.net’s #spaz channel, with more information here. I plan on joining in, and hope some new people will stop by. For a project this awesome, it’s absolutely worth it. Definitely a great project to get started in the FOSS world with.