Add in O'Reilly conference list

[RichardLitt]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttYpVdCRb8G3ulesFrg6OvpJGKEXk6kmmtGWsyqWFw4/edit#gid=0

From twitter.com/joshsimmons

[RichardLitt]

So, I've converted all of this into two .json files, one pretty comprehensive and the other for his 'construction site' section. The question is - how to best display this? I chose JSON because I think we're going to want some sort of client-side templating, and certainly a nice search option.

Do you know of any small handlebar-like templating that provides search and works on GitHub Pages? @brittanystoroz

[RichardLitt]

Maybe we should just use https://github.com/janl/mustache.js...?

[stephnr]

:+1: I like this idea. I can help write some of the code for that given the two json files.

[RichardLitt]

They're there, on branch json-parse. Any ideas as to how do to this would be cool.

[RichardLitt]

Feel free to just start, too.

[stephnr]

I noticed mustache.js only allows for variable insertion to a template HTML file via a JSON file. I am going to go ahead and use something like Angular.

[RichardLitt]

I mean, Angular makes sense. Thought it might be overkill. No?

[stephnr]

Nope, not at all. I am a web developer by trade. Should be an easy job. I already have the environment set up. Feel free to watch my fork for changes

https://github.com/Stephn-R/awesome-conferences

[RichardLitt]

Haha, didn't mean that. I meant it's just such a powerful library, all I wanted was something that could filter and list with a repeater. Good luck.

[stephnr]

Please look here for an example of what I have put together:

http://oreilly-events.herokuapp.com/

It has the general functionality in an easy to ready format. I can also do UI/UX. This is just the barebones.

[RichardLitt]

So, that's pretty awesome, and I think we can work with it. I'd like to make a script so that we can keep the README stuff, too - something to automatically convert JSON to Markdown and vice versa, so that this retains it's value as an awesome-list. But I think that's probably secondary to having a much better search functionality, as well as more details. It's likely we'll need to expand this, eventually - for instance, I want to put in filters for when to apply, what sort of code of conducts they have (important to be truly awesome), etc. I think this is pretty sweet though.

@brittanystoroz what do you think?

[stephnr]

Haha I love the way you think. Anything you wanna add in, let me know. I always love a good challenge.

For the README, were you looking to automate it from the same JSON file?

Also, if possible, I think we should try to include Josh Simmons at some point. I think he would love this.

[RichardLitt]

Yeah. Not sure he has a Github. He asked me if he could use the list, I asked back. Will point him to this. As for the challenge, I can help too, of course.

For the Readme we really only kind of need what we have currently, I don't want it to get too ugly. Space constrictions. There should be a way of doing it well, I just don't want a huge ugly readme.

[stephnr]

True. I imagine we can still keep with the original layout. It could be worthwhile to start wiki pages for each of the regions. This way we can just include hyperlinks in the README. But as far as I know, that would be a mostly static type of content

[RichardLitt]

What I absolutely don't want is a wiki. I want to keep this as a PR thing - that's the whole point of awesome lists, they are in some sense individually curated and they can be seen as entirely static. The website filter is just a means to help that, and eventually may be a more inclusive information endpoint.

[stephnr]

I see. Got it, no wiki at all. So where should go with next steps from here?

[joshsimmons]

This is SO full of win. Thanks you two for carrying the baton. I have less time to develop and more time to research these days -- so I'm grateful active developers are carrying the torch :D Someone recently nudged me to draft this "spec" recently: https://docs.google.com/a/oreilly.com/document/d/18vNvhaDy-lRrc7Nr2RRBMdgtkt_vwG74zGiNy_AfEkU/edit

Seems like there are numerous aggregations of this data, but it's pretty much silo'd -- which inspired the direction of that document.

Please, let me know how I can help. While this list began curated, in some sense it's becoming exhaustive. I want to capture as much information as possible and make it available to people, but I am definitely going to be curating as well. I don't have a good way to do this yet, at least not in that spreadsheet.

I'm a LAMP developer working as a community manager at O'Reilly Media, so marketing, research, and conferences is something I do constantly. It's awesome ... and any way I can create some public value from this is great.

... which is all to say, I'm happy to keep curating. But also let me know if there are other things I can do to help.

[RichardLitt]

Thanks @joshsimmons. So, basically, the front end idea that @Stephn-R got ready was part of the overall plan to make this list more than just a list (see #3, #26). I still want to keep a base README.md so that anyone coming on this from Github can see a list of the conference names, maybe twitter details, some basic information. However, a website goes a long way towards making this list more useable, and I think that, ideally, this website would be more of a web app.

I think the next steps are to find a way to clone the JSON entry into the README and back again, so that people can submit PRs to either (we want to allow maximal port of entry, although it does require some research and curation on our part); to add more detail to the list provided by @Stephn-R - for instance, I think descriptions of the conferences, and eventually things like talks and speakers would be good;dates for calls for papers; better dissemination. There are places we can go from there, but I think that's it for now.

I think I'm just going to merge this in; @Stephn-R, want to submit a PR? And both of you, want to be collaborators on this?

[RichardLitt]

Oh, and as for your spec - that's definitely where I want to end up. I think we'll need to build out an API for it, but that's cool, we can do that. I'm a MEAN developer, though, so I'm not sure about the LAMP stack...

[stephnr]

@RichardLitt, I am definitely all game to join the crew on this one. Conferences are all I live for these days (its literally my job at Gartner). I will send the PR right away.

With regards to the future of this site, I do believe we can definitely take this in the right direction as a full-fledged web app that many people can use as a solid resource for finding conferences that match their budget/locale. This is an amazing example of the very same concept but geared towards hackathons:

http://mlh.io/seasons/f2014/events

I know the developers who built this site too so no worries if we need to find out how they achieved some of their functionality.

Also, I have 0 experience with the LAMP stack but I am totally game for a bigger challenge :+1:

[stephnr]

Oh and @joshsimmons thanks for the swift reply and the kind words. Kudos and perks to you for putting this list together in the first place. O-Reilly does amazing things everyday and we (the developers) truly do appreciate all your hard work.

[joshsimmons]

That all sounds great, even the MEAN stuff ;-) And I am all for multiple entry points for data and multiple ways to consume this data, both raw and curated. Would love to collaborate!

EDIT: Thanks for the thanks! I love hearing that -- I felt similarly and was honored to join the mothership. Best. Job. Ever.

[RichardLitt]

Heh. I'm just a normal web developer. The vast majority of the conferences I've been to or keep tabs on are actually in another academic field. Still!

Added you both. @Stephn-R, how did you deploy that?

[stephnr]

Awesome. Thanks for the add. @RichardLitt , to run the app locally, just navigate within the O-Reilly folder and run the following terminal command:

node web.js

This of course requires that you run npm install first and have node installed.

[RichardLitt]

Yeah, I don't mean locally. I mean on Github Pages via Heroku. I remember there being a button, or something?

[stephnr]

Oh, if thats the case then yeah, I will need to strip the folder to a static site (Angular still included). I can get to that tonight after I finish up at the office.

[RichardLitt]

Heh. Yep, it's gotta be static. Thought that might be an issue. Alternatively, we could just not use Github Pages and launch this as it's own site. I have a server I could put it on.

[joshsimmons]

Thanks for the add, @RichardLitt! IDK if it's helpful, but I own opensource.pub and aim to make it a home for open source books, publishing resources, and related projects. Would be happy to create a place for this project in its namespace if that's of interest.

[RichardLitt]

Hmm; how likely is that to happen? What's your roadmap for that? I'm a bit reticent to set this app as a subdomain permanently if the main domain is a holding page.

[joshsimmons]

It's a sure thing, though the timeline is sketchy because it's one of many side projects -- and not the most important one. I can understand if you pass on this :-) In the end, it may just be another outpost/data source.

[stephnr]

Perhaps we can consider the option of buying another domain just for this? @RichardLitt, you mentioned you own some server space. Is this a web hosting service or something like DigitalOcean (i.e. Virtual Server).

[RichardLitt]

It's a web hosting service, on Webfaction. I think some sort of Heroku service might work best, though, and I could probably pay for it.

One thing I'm worried about is that I'm not sure what the actual demand would be for another website for conferences as opposed to an awesome-* list is, though; one is easy to star, the other is harder to maintain and may already be irrelevant given the speed and general online-savvyness of the field.

[stephnr]

Well perhaps we add it to the contribution guidelines? That if anyone wants to add to the repo, they need to add the conference to both the README and the json file. If thats the case, that will resolve the issue of us needing to update the app.

[stephnr]

Of course, we would still need to accept any pull requests

[RichardLitt]

Yeah. That's a bit of a barrier to participation, though; editing the file inline is really easy if it's in Markdown, while editing two files is a pain. Maybe we should just make that part of our PR workflow.