http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org Developer Happiness Days Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:52:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Training doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to be led by a teacher. It doesn’t even have to be called training. Key to the success of Dev8D is how it provides training in an atmosphere of friendly, playful collaboration. Developers are given the opportunity to hone their skills ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/08/skills-for-developers-skills-for-institutions/ If there is one stereotype that Dev8d well and truly banishes it is that developers are unsociable nerds who prefer to code alone. The community, networking and collaboration at Dev8D is one of the most immediately noticeable features of the event and, according to the participants, the most valuable. "I really ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/08/dev8d-and-community-networking/ An iPhone app for conference schedules with augmented reality, a Firefox extension for browsing historic web pages, a widget to allow real time collaboration between VLE users, a mash-up of geo-located museum collection images: for a glimpse of how much a community of enthusiastic developers can achieve in just ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/08/dev8d-real-achievements-fast/ One of the more unusual and exciting aspects of Dev8D is the idea of 'bounties',  where developers create something during the event in response to a specific challenge. It calls for fast and furious coding, collaboration to draw on others' expertise, and...a lot of caffeine.  The coding-collaboration-caffeine combination produces some ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/08/dev8d-challenge-ideas-and-winners/ Dev8D was exciting, friendly, encouraging, nurturing and... almost entirely populated by men. Of nearly 300 attendees, only 20 - that's 7% - were women. The technology/web development industry is notoriously male-dominated, but even in this context the gender imbalance at Dev8D seemed disproportionate. We'd like to know what you think. Are we ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/07/dev8d-where-were-the-women/ If you've ever wondered what a book would look like printed out on a till receipt roll, like a digital age On the Road, then ponder no longer. Ben O'Steen has done just that with Cory Doctorow's latest novel, Makers. First point to note is that this experiment is possible because ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/01/what-makes-a-book-a-book/ Museums need to stop building websites and start taking a stealth approach to getting their content out to new audiences, says Katie Pekacar of the Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).  At Dev8D she issued a challenge to developers to come up with ideas to take the rich collections offered ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/03/01/interview-katie-pekacar-policy-advisor-at-the-mla/ Scientists and developers are a match made in heaven, says Ian Mulvany, the product manager of Nature journal's Nature Network. He explains what Nature is hoping to achieve by working with the developer community, what it can offer them, and the first steps ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/02/27/interview-ian-mulvaney-product-manager-nature/ Audawe Elesedy, environmentalist "My idea is for an eco game. It’s going to be open source from the very beginning, which means there is no fixed plan for exactly how it will look, or what it will do. It’s still very much in the concept stages and we need people to ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/02/27/i-have-an-idea-eco-game/ I provide organisational support services, primarily in the support sector. What’s your interest in Dev8D? I do lots of work across different organisations such as education and government agencies, so I have quite a broad range of interests. I’m very interested in open source software, and also linked data - looking at ... http://dev8D.jiscinvolve.org/2010/02/26/interview-corrine-welsh/