A Quick Bi-Weekly Re-cap

Week 1: May 19 to May 25

1. Researched history of OHM project in the mailing list archives and GitHub issues here and here.
2. First OHM planning meeting on Google Hangouts, synopsis by Robert H. Warren posted at May 22 OHM Hangout Synopsis
3. Added to Github OHM organziation and (scarily) given push access.
4. Assigned and began work on microtask of investigating client side rendering.

Week 2: May 26 to June 1 - DRAFT/WIP

1. Went spelunking through the OHM Rails Port to find where to place the slider (and was later introduced to (and made a small link fix within) the official OHM UI wiki page.
2. Attended #OPW IRC chat for OPW Interns on May 27 3PM UTC.
   1. We had a round of intros and some general questions
   2. Sumana Harihareswara is now the official "so where do we go after this is over" post-internship planning mentor
   3. Sumana also posted a link to a very helpful article on when to ask for help First You Must Try, Then You Must Ask.
3. During this week's Google Hangout meeting with my mentor, we reviewed the task from last week and discussed next steps
   1. find a place for the TimeSlider on the OHM site
   2. start finding a way to make input from the TimeSlider feed into the website and request the tiles needed (this one's a higher level task and will break out into other pieces)
4. I posted mockups of two different ideas for TimeSlider placement:
   
   1. within the header of the site
   2. attached to the search box on the site

Seeking An Alternative to The JQuery UI Slider

I've spent most of the weekend digging around in the Open Streetmap code base on GitHub. If our first goal is to develop a slider that will fit in (over?) that code, I'd like to make sure that whatever we create will mesh nicely with what's already in that repository. If I'm reading this correctly, the code already includes JQuery via the jquery-rails gem. What it doesn't have is the JQuery UI. The initial slider(s) that I've been working with both depend on the JQuery UI module, so I went spelunking in the JQuery UI code.

Wow.

There's got to be a better way.
__________________________________________________________

Update (5/20/15): Yes, there is another way. Your mentor finds someone who enjoys the front end piece to build the slider!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I'm yours for the summer, Outreach Project for Women :).

I just successfully (I hope ;) ) uploaded my signed contract for the OPW.

Muggles, Outsiders and Empathy

I was listening to Hanselminutes yesterday. (Yes, yes, I realize that's like Hermione saying she went to the library yesterday.)

And what precisely is that supposed to mean?

The guest on Hanselminutes was David Starr, who's especially known for using Agile methodologies, including at home, as part of managing his family. It was an interesting conversation and definitely worth some time. They got to the part where they needed to come up with a gender-neutral term for their better halves. (As in the person you need to explain Trello to and convince to use GitHub for the family shopping list.) Mr. Hanselman suggested the term "non-technical spouse." It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Muggle is the word I use (in my head, at least.) But not just for technical stuff. In my house, we're all rather technically-inclined, but in different areas. Most of us are gamers, one is not (full disclosure: that's me). We're interfaith with a ratio 4:1. One of us can't watch PG-13 movies. Females outnumber males. The young outnumber the old ;). No matter how you slice it or which grouping you choose, there's always going to be someone who's left out. There's always someone who feels a bit like an outsider. There's always a Muggle in our midst.

That actually makes it a good thing. Because the borders around our various allegiances shift with every different topic, each of us experiences being the Outsider. And because each of us empathizes with that feeling of not knowing what everyone else is so excited about (or even understanding half of what they're saying), we all can have a lot more compassion and patience with each other. (We can, not that we always do. This is a real family, not a PSA or a very special episode of Jesse.)

The whole world is like this, if you look hard enough. We're all the Muggle sometimes. Imagine what could happen if we all took a little more time to remember this.

Today

I've been lurking on the Ada Developers Academy website for months, waiting for this day. The application for the September class is posted.

ZOMG!

There are now two logic puzzles (yeay), the Markdown resume, reading assessment, and still the YouTube video requirement (not so yeay) but I've already dug in. Nothing's going to stop me from applying this time.

Most especially myself.

Ada Developers Academy is a Gift to Seattle

Yesterday, Emily Parkhurst's interview with Geoffrey Moore was making the rounds on Twitter. Moore's basic argument is that public policy (tax breaks, planning, education, etc) should be more focused on the tech sector and the convergence of UX, data and the cloud and less focused on increasingly less relevant companies (cough, Boeing, cough, cough.)

As if on cue, Code for Seattle hosted a round of presentations by the first cohort of Ada Developers Academy. The night was all about civic apps and (although I was egregiously late) it was a peek into the greatness that ADA is releasing into our city(ies). Three apps were demonstrated tonight:

Where Can I Park?
http://wherecanipark.in/seattle­
Conceived, coded and created by Hsing-Hui Hsu and Liz Rush, this app helps drivers in Seattle make sense of the insanity that is finding a place to park.  Sadly, it doesn't work outside of Seattle (but that's where you really need it, anyway!)

What Do I Do With____?
http://www.wdidw.com/
Created by Audrey Carlsen, WDIDW was inspired by the (rather sad) old King County website that attempted to do the same. It's a really cool app. I wish it had been around the last time I moved! :)

Map My Districts
Map My Districts is a special in-house app that was created by Anne Kimsey for the Seattle City Council in order to cope with the new redistricting that just took place.  My head almost exploded when she showed the polygon math that's going on in the background when drawing the maps!

And these are just three of the capstone projects created by the first cohort of the Ada Developers Academy after 24 weeks of studying. Can't you just imagine what scores of ADA graduates are going to be able to do for Seattle?

Let's Do the Time Slide Again!

The official start of my internship with Wikimedia is rapidly approaching, so I've started hacking away at the first listed goal: The TimeSlider.

I've got this as a beginning prototype:

<!doctype html>
<html lang='en'>
<head>
  <meta charset='utf-8'>
  <title>jQuery UI Slider - Range Slider</title>
  <link rel='stylesheet' href='http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.4/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css'>
  <script src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js'></script>
  <script src='http://code.jquery.com/ui/1.10.4/jquery-ui.js'></script>
  <script>
    $(function() {
      $('#slider-range').slider({
        range: true,
        min: 0,
        max: 500,
        values: [75, 300],
        slide: function(event, ui) {
          $('#amount').val('$' + ui.values[0] + ' - $' + ui.values[1]);
        }
      });
      $('#amount').val($('#slider-range').slider('values', 0) + ' - ' + 
         $('#slider-range').slider('values', 1));
    });

I posted a link to a working model on the Open Historical Streetmap mailing list, the Bugzilla report and on the Github issues page. I've been getting some great (if somewhat conflicting ;) ) feedback, which was just what I needed. I will post more soon!