Contributing Code Empathetically

Remembering the People Behind Projects.

Given at jQuery Dev Summit 2015.

Transcript

1. Contributing Code Empathetically
2. Remembering People Behind Projects
3. Who Am I?
4. Who Am I? Nick Hehr Empathetic Community Member Front-End Developer Hoodie Contributor
6. What is Empathy?
7. What is Empathy? The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
8. What is Empathy? Seeing the world through the eyes of someone else.

9. Breakdown • Context • Constructive Feedback • Communication • Caring
10. Context
11. The internal and external factors that influence the decisions we make and actions we take.
12. How It Relates • No One is Un-Opinionated • We All Have Biases • Listening is Key • “Why?”
14. Set The Example
15. Descriptive Descriptions • screenshots, animated GIFs, or screencasts • the behavior and visuals you expected • related issues that would be closed • any context/reasoning behind why a change should be made • notes or concerns while in progress
16. Constructive Feedback
17. The return of information that helps to develop or improve.
18. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
20. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
21. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
22. How It Relates “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
23. • Mutually Agreed Upon • Set Up With Expectations • In An Open Space • Shared With Context Constructive Feedback is…
24. Example Code Reviews
25. It is intended to find and fix mistakes overlooked, improving both the overall quality of software and developers' skills.
26. Encouraging Constructive Feedback
28. https://github.com/atom/atom/blob/master/ CONTRIBUTING.md
29. https://github.com/hoodiehq/hoodie/blob/master/ CONTRIBUTING.md
30. Communication
31. The successful sharing of ideas and feelings between people.
32. How It Relates • What We Say • How We Say It • Where We Say It
33. “I” Statements For Giving Constructive Feedback For Getting Context
34. “You” Statements For Getting Context For Giving Constructive Feedback
36. How We Communicate • General = Slack • Standups = Hangouts / In-Person • Recorded Discussions = GitHub Issues • Long-Form / Async = Email
37. https://<your-team>.slack.com/ customize/slackbot
38. Caring
39. To provide the needs of something and show interest in it.
40. How It Relates • Caring is Sharing • And Listening • And Understanding
41. How Much Do You Care?
42. Do You Care Enough… • To Write A Blog Post? • To File An Issue? • To Send An Email? • To Record A Screencast? • To Submit A Pull Request?
43. – Yoda “Don’t give in to hate. It leads to the Dark Side.”
44. Example Documentation
45. Documentation Matters • Wikis • Code Comments • Styleguides • Pattern Libraries • README.md
46. Exemplifying Caring
47. http://hood.ie/community/#contributors
48. http://hood.ie/contribute/
49. By starting to apply empathy to connect with others professionally, we can continue down that path to connect with others personally.
50. Resources
51. http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/practical-empathy/
52. http://more-empathy.online
53. Thank You