OpenAerialMap/Meeting Apr 09, 2015

Apr 09 20:01:55 cristiano: Good morning/evening!
Apr 09 20:02:24 tassia: hi!
Apr 09 20:02:24 cristiano: OAM chat starting in a few minutes
Apr 09 20:02:27 smathermather: Hi!
Apr 09 20:02:30 lossyrob: hello!
Apr 09 20:02:58 cristiano: Hi tassia, lossyrob, smathermather
Apr 09 20:03:41 cristiano: @blake do you mind logging?
Apr 09 20:05:18 cristiano: I was out last week, but I think you talked about using Gitter, which would be useful to keep chats persistent
Apr 09 20:05:39 cristiano: and not having to record the logs :)
Apr 09 20:07:12 lossyrob: yup! GeoTrellis has been using it for about a couple of weeks now
Apr 09 20:07:37 lossyrob: and people seem to be responding really well. e.g. there is way more activity on our Gitter room
Apr 09 20:08:10 tassia: what is gitter?
Apr 09 20:08:18 wildintellect: I just verified you can join gitter with an IRC client
Apr 09 20:08:19 cristiano: cool - here's the one for OAM https://gitter.im/hotosm/OpenAerialMap
Apr 09 20:08:21 tassia: sorry if it is a stupid question
Apr 09 20:08:32 lossyrob: tassia it's a chat client that connects to github repos
Apr 09 20:08:44 wildintellect: gitter is new service, it's kinda like IRC
Apr 09 20:08:47 lossyrob: you can view it on the web or with applicaitions
Apr 09 20:08:51 wildintellect: but has a web interface
Apr 09 20:09:43 cristiano: similar to slack but integrates more directly with github
Apr 09 20:10:14 tassia: lossyrob, thanks
Apr 09 20:10:18 lossyrob: (catching up with the gitter convos now)
Apr 09 20:10:38 cristiano: and we're integrating other things like trello, which is nice. You can use markdown, post files, etc
Apr 09 20:11:05 lossyrob: another option is waffle.io...I haven't used it but I know projects that do
Apr 09 20:11:10 cristiano: but the nicest thing I think it's that's persistent, so you can easily catch up and keep discussion transparent and public
Apr 09 20:11:55 lossyrob: waffle.io is to trello as gitter is to slack, it seems like
Apr 09 20:12:13 cristiano: anyway, I think now that we start more active development it would the obvious place to chat
Apr 09 20:12:27 cristiano: yes, I think we have an OAM waffle already
Apr 09 20:12:37 cristiano: I think Kate set it up a while ago
Apr 09 20:13:15 cristiano: here it is https://waffle.io/hotosm/openaerialmap
Apr 09 20:13:27 lossyrob: nice
Apr 09 20:14:07 wildintellect: waffle does not appear to be chat - just ticket management
Apr 09 20:14:23 lossyrob: wildintellect yeah that was in reference to cristiano talking about using Trello
Apr 09 20:15:21 cristiano: (I just pinged Nate@DevSeed, they should be here soon)
Apr 09 20:16:09 cristiano: in the meantime I was wondering if anyone here is thinking to join in for the OAM meeting in DC in May?
Apr 09 20:16:23 lossyrob: I'll be at HOT summit and the meeting
Apr 09 20:17:11 cristiano: cool!
Apr 09 20:17:21 cristiano: We can also cover some travel if someone else is interested to attend
Apr 09 20:17:28 nsmith: hey guys
Apr 09 20:17:41 nsmith: @cristiano where are we thinking for location?
Apr 09 20:17:44 cristiano: hey Nate!
Apr 09 20:17:54 cristiano: the OpenGov Hub
Apr 09 20:18:01 tassia: cristiano, I'll be at the HOT summit, but I had already booked my tickets for saturday before knowing about the sprint :(
Apr 09 20:18:07 cristiano: which is where HOTOSM office is
Apr 09 20:19:01 cristiano: oh, sorry about that Tassia. Maybe we help and change the flight back?
Apr 09 20:19:14 cristiano: let me find the address for the Hub - 1 sec
Apr 09 20:20:08 cristiano: 1110 Vermont Ave NW #500, Washington, DC
Apr 09 20:21:16 cristiano: we have a large room on Sunday and a smaller one (7ppl I think) on Monday
Apr 09 20:22:07 cristiano: Anyway, let us know through Gitter or email list if anyone else is interested to attend
Apr 09 20:22:33 tassia: I'll check what the possibilities are...
Apr 09 20:22:34 cristiano: How many of you are going to attend @nsmith?
Apr 09 20:22:53 smathermather: I've been thinking about going to the summit, but should refrain to keep things happy on the domestic front...
Apr 09 20:23:19 tassia: @nsmith?
Apr 09 20:23:50 cristiano: I hear you @smathermather :-)
Apr 09 20:23:57 nsmith: @cristiano ok that's great we have space at OpenGov hub.
Apr 09 20:24:46 nsmith: will confirm numbers. most likely be a few from devseed.
Apr 09 20:25:01 nsmith: are we also all in agreement to move to gitter?
Apr 09 20:25:10 cristiano: Let's do a headcount a couple of weeks before, so that we'll know how many rooms we need for Monday
Apr 09 20:25:14 lossyrob: +1
Apr 09 20:25:39 cristiano: +1 on gitter!
Apr 09 20:26:56 tassia: ok
Apr 09 20:27:12 cristiano: Actually I think we may have two rooms or Monday already, I have to check with Kate
Apr 09 20:27:31 tassia: yeah, I plan to attend nsmith's session at HOT summit
Apr 09 20:28:08 tassia: if that was the question :-)
Apr 09 20:28:49 cristiano: aha, no sorry, I was asking how many people from DevSeed were going to attend the OAM meeting
Apr 09 20:29:14 nsmith: :) glad at least someone is coming to my session
Apr 09 20:29:28 cristiano: but yes, we'll all be at @nsmith's session at the summit too :-)))
Apr 09 20:29:51 tassia: heheh great
Apr 09 20:31:32 cristiano: so, the initial plan for the OAM meeting was to do a sprint. We may have some prototype code already by then, but at this point we should also plan to make 1 (or half) day a roadmap discussion right?
Apr 09 20:32:45 cristiano: and depending on how far Nate&Co get with the API work, then we could discuss and review that as well, especially in light of the processing parts to be integrated later
Apr 09 20:34:37 lossyrob: that sounds right to me
Apr 09 20:34:38 nsmith: agreed, we should be in a great spot to have a productive roadmap conversation
Apr 09 20:35:54 cristiano: @nsmith was suggesting to wait until after the meeting to publish the OAM server contract
Apr 09 20:36:18 cristiano: so that we have a clearer idea of requirements and specs
Apr 09 20:39:07 cristiano: I just want to make sure we don't delay too much, so that we can complete everything by the end of funding in September
Apr 09 20:40:12 cristiano: but I was thinking to go with a direct contract, unless you think we should put out another call
Apr 09 20:40:12 lossyrob: I think it makes sense to bring something to the meeting, and after we all hash it out, then publish it.
Apr 09 20:40:33 lossyrob: oh sorry. totally misread what contract was. I thought you mean API contract.
Apr 09 20:41:36 lossyrob: what is the difference between putting out a call vs direct contract?
Apr 09 20:41:48 cristiano: No, I mean the OAM Server contract, second part of the dev funds we have
Apr 09 20:42:13 cristiano: just hiring directly someone who we think may do a good job
Apr 09 20:42:35 lossyrob: that would be quicker than doing an open call for sure
Apr 09 20:43:18 cristiano: right. Anyway, I'll check with the new HOT ED and board to make sure it's fine with them
Apr 09 20:44:45 cristiano: I am not sure if @tassia has been introduced already, but she's one of the applicants of the outreachy scholarship program, with an excellent proposal about creating a QGIS OAM plugin
Apr 09 20:45:09 lossyrob: oh cool. Hi tassia!
Apr 09 20:45:34 tassia: hi!
Apr 09 20:45:52 tassia: cristiano, thanks for the fancy intro ;-)
Apr 09 20:45:56 nsmith: @tassia nice, that's great
Apr 09 20:46:17 cristiano: We haven't finalized the list of candidates and approved by Outreachy, but I'm pushing really hard her candidacy ;-)
Apr 09 20:47:08 cristiano: I think being able to integrate and connect with other tools and communities is key to the success of OAM, so this will be one first example
Apr 09 20:48:59 tassia: nice ;-)
Apr 09 20:49:13 russdeffner: that's excellent, hoping you get the scholarship tassia
Apr 09 20:49:20 cristiano: we also have other ideas more or less related to the current OAM, but worth considering for connecting with other communities
Apr 09 20:49:31 cristiano: here's one we just submitted https://docs.google.com/document/d/12tq5mjfvq47jazypbQO-mxJV8o6gAXMnj0KTMANOKyk/edit?usp=sharing
Apr 09 20:49:45 cristiano: it's for #hackforchange in June
Apr 09 20:50:13 cristiano: probably more related to ODM @smathermather ;-)
Apr 09 20:50:56 cristiano: but one day, would be nice for OAM to be able to provide access to individual ortho images and oblique
Apr 09 20:53:18 cristiano: Anwyay, the API will really be the frame for everything, so getting is started is the first big step
Apr 09 20:54:17 cristiano: @nsmith, do you guys already use readme.io for other projects?
Apr 09 20:54:57 nsmith: @cristiano yeah on a current project. I don't think we have a link to show yet though.
Apr 09 20:55:09 wildintellect: why not readthedocs.org?
Apr 09 20:55:53 cristiano: I was wondering if anyone has experience with http://swagger.io/ based platforms?
Apr 09 20:56:12 cristiano: can you do interactive API examples on readthedocs?
Apr 09 20:56:44 wildintellect: define interactive
Apr 09 20:56:49 wildintellect: interactive to the end user?
Apr 09 20:57:13 lossyrob: I have experience with swagger, but not in a good way...
Apr 09 20:57:32 lossyrob: we used to use Jetty for our services, and with swagger you would mark up the source code with a bunch of @API doc attributes
Apr 09 20:57:53 lossyrob: and eventually that project was chocking because of weird java reflection errors, when we upgraded a version of something
Apr 09 20:57:59 lossyrob: so I ended up ripping it out
Apr 09 20:58:13 lossyrob: now that's not necessarily Swagger's fault. Probably jetty's.
Apr 09 20:58:50 lossyrob: but while it worked, it was really cool. You can look at http://transit.geotrellis.com/ to see the swagger docs (which I ended up hard coding when I ripped out the swagger doc auto generation)
Apr 09 20:59:06 cristiano: re interactive I mean something like at the bottom here https://sample-solid.readme.io/v1.0/docs/orders
Apr 09 20:59:28 tassia: I don't know about the interative part, but readthedocs.org looks more attractive to me
Apr 09 20:59:52 cristiano: @lossyrob that's what I mean by interactive
Apr 09 20:59:54 wildintellect: yes, in that sphinx allows you to embed js
Apr 09 21:00:03 tassia: while readme.io seems to be a private corporate solution
Apr 09 21:00:12 wildintellect: but no it doesn't autogen api examples
Apr 09 21:00:16 cristiano: @lossyrob, I mean your example
Apr 09 21:00:18 lossyrob: wildintellect, these actually let you hit the API live and see the JSON that comes back
Apr 09 21:00:27 lossyrob: which is the "interactive" part
Apr 09 21:00:46 wildintellect: I'm not really sure how necessary that is
Apr 09 21:01:04 lossyrob: I'd agree.
Apr 09 21:01:06 wildintellect: copying and pasting a url into a fresh browser window
Apr 09 21:01:11 wildintellect: does the same thing
Apr 09 21:01:17 wildintellect: or pulling up firebug
Apr 09 21:01:18 lossyrob: or just having it documented with static
Apr 09 21:01:28 lossyrob: but the thing is, it will let you modify the params in teh GET request on the fly
Apr 09 21:01:47 lossyrob: so you can sort of see what specific requests you want to post to it, and then see what comes back. which you can do with firefly or the like, but it is a "nice-to-have"
Apr 09 21:01:58 lossyrob: also provides sane defaults
Apr 09 21:02:29 cristiano: So, if we go with Sphinx/readthedocs, then everything is stored in GitHub right?
Apr 09 21:02:43 smathermather: whoa, @cristiano re: national civic day of hacking... . That's during SOTM. #hackforchange
Apr 09 21:02:54 wildintellect: cristiano, yes
Apr 09 21:03:05 wildintellect: it uses post commit hooks to update the docs
Apr 09 21:03:15 cristiano: That would be one plus too, so that we have all code/docs in one place
Apr 09 21:03:40 cristiano: @smathermather, yes, unfortunately….
Apr 09 21:04:21 cristiano: well, @nsmith, what do you guys think?
Apr 09 21:05:26 cristiano: readme.io vs readthedocs?
Apr 09 21:05:40 tassia: even as a "nice-to-have" feature, the price of relying in a corporate service for that is too high IMHO
Apr 09 21:05:54 wildintellect: you can always link to https://jsfiddle.net/ examples
Apr 09 21:06:02 wildintellect: for an interactive example
Apr 09 21:06:18 nsmith: hey sorry for dropping off. yeah no need to decide on a method yet. readme.io was something we've been looking at, but not wedded.
Apr 09 21:06:34 nsmith: key will be to not only provide good docs, but concrete examples and code snippets
Apr 09 21:06:47 wildintellect: code snippets can be in the docs
Apr 09 21:06:57 wildintellect: and you can api push them to a fiddle site
Apr 09 21:08:24 nsmith: yeah totally
Apr 09 21:09:37 cristiano: And I bet readthedocs would be easier for Internationalization, …when we get there
Apr 09 21:11:28 cristiano: shall we go with that then? I can set it up and link to GitHub
Apr 09 21:12:26 cristiano: @wildintellect can you give an example of readthedocs for API documentation?
Apr 09 21:12:36 cristiano: just to see what it looks like
Apr 09 21:13:04 wildintellect: http://graphite-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
Apr 09 21:13:29 nsmith: @cristiano is there a reason we need to choose now? i would say that we wait until we have documentation and then figure out how to provide a quality docs
Apr 09 21:14:09 wildintellect: just write docs inline with the code in whatever way is compatible with extraction (e.g. python docstrings)
Apr 09 21:14:13 wildintellect: to start
Apr 09 21:14:17 lossyrob: I find that just having markdown docs in the github repo to start is a good starting point...
Apr 09 21:14:26 lossyrob: e.g. rasterio
Apr 09 21:14:40 nsmith: yeah, http://www.mkdocs.org/ is good for that if you want to drop a UI on top
Apr 09 21:15:38 cristiano: @nsmith just to make sure that whatever you start writing doesn't need to much translation for when we fit it into something
Apr 09 21:15:41 cristiano: :)
Apr 09 21:15:56 wildintellect: yes markdown
Apr 09 21:16:03 wildintellect: readthedocs can use that later
Apr 09 21:16:11 wildintellect: and we can convert it if needed
Apr 09 21:18:04 cristiano: OK, cool. @nsmith will you guys have a draft/outline of the API by next week?
Apr 09 21:19:14 cristiano: markdown in Github, then we can review/comment/feedback during next week's chat
Apr 09 21:20:43 cristiano: (and we'll also try to keep it at 1 hour :-) )
Apr 09 21:21:17 cristiano: let's transition to Gitter in the meantime
Apr 09 21:21:20 nsmith: @cristiano it'll probably be the week of the 20th. we have our heads down on two other major projects until the 15th.
Apr 09 21:21:36 cristiano: and wrap up here on IRC for today
Apr 09 21:22:15 nsmith: sounds good
Apr 09 21:22:36 cristiano: @nsmith OK
Apr 09 21:23:04 cristiano: all right, thanks guys! have a good one
Apr 09 21:23:19 cristiano: …and see you on Gitter :-)
Apr 09 21:25:17 tassia: see you next time!
Apr 09 21:26:05 smathermather: Cheers.
Apr 09 21:30:12 lossyrob: cheers