Chef London User Group, October 2014
Chef Community
Resources

Who am I?
• Co-founder/Chief Architect @ Elastera
• 16+ years sysadmin/dba/operations
• 3+ years Chef
• zts on IRC, Twitter, and github

Why?

Overview
❖ Getting support
❖ Engaging with chef development
❖ Being part of the community

Community Support

Community Support
❖ People helping each other, for free
❖ Be polite (even if you’re frustrated)
❖ If you demand immediate attention, consider commercial
support
❖ (Be polite to them, too!)

General Advice
❖ Explain what you're trying to achieve
❖ Remember, TIMTOWTDI
❖ Ask Smart Questions
❖ http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Support
❖ IRC
❖ Mailing lists
❖ Stack Exchange

What is IRC?
❖ Internet Relay Chat
❖ Networks formed of Servers
❖ Channels are groups of Users
❖ Web client: www.irccloud.com
❖ ObYoDawg: IRCCloud uses Chef!

IRC
❖ Freenode - irc.freenode.net
❖ Main channel: #chef
❖ Project channels:
❖ #berkshelf
❖ #chefspec
❖ #kitchenci

IRC
❖ Bad topics
❖ needs a lot of context
❖ Good topics
❖ almost anything else

IRC - Tips for Questioners
❖ Don't “ask to ask”
❖ Share code using gist.github.com
❖ Be patient
❖ Someone might answer your question minutes or hours after you ask
it.

IRC - Tips for Answerers
❖ Do explain, don’t assert
❖ Assume good faith
❖ Don't IRC angry
❖ Remember, TIMTOWTDI

Mailing List
❖ chef@lists.opscode.com
❖ Subscribe:
❖ http://lists.opscode.com/sympa/subscribe/chef
❖ Archives:
❖ http://lists.opscode.com/sympa/arc/chef

Mailing List
❖ Good for…
❖ Announcements
❖ Discussion
❖ Open-ended support questions

Stack Exchange
❖ StackOverflow
❖ Mostly development
❖ ServerFault
❖ Mostly system administration

ServerFault
❖ Tags
❖ chef x 378
❖ 12 this month, 103 this year
❖ chef-solo x 64
❖ chef-client x 30
❖ chef-server x 39

StackOverflow
❖ Tags
❖ chef x 1837
❖ 21 this week, 117 this month
❖ chef-recipe x 268
❖ chef-solo x 193
❖ chefspec x 26

Stack Exchange
❖ Good questions…
❖ state your goal
❖ short code example
❖ relevant errors/output
❖ have concrete answers

Development

IRC - #chef-hacking
❖ Not much discussion (mostly bots)
❖ Most developers are based in the USA, so peak traffic is
UK evening/overnight

Mailing List - chef-dev
❖ Mostly announcements and updates
❖ eg, office hours minutes
❖ Discussion of RFCs and PRs

Github
❖ Issues
❖ Bug reports
❖ Pull Requests
❖ Proposed fixes

Community Summits
❖ Annual event
❖ London as well as Seattle this year
❖ https://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Chef+Community+
Summit+2014
❖ http://www.getchef.com/summit-london/

Development
❖ Active efforts to foster the open-source community
around Chef
❖ http://www.getchef.com/blog/2014/07/03/chef-as-a-community/

“I would have gotten much more explicit about how
we build Chef at the same time as we got so much
better at serving the needs of our growing
consumer base.”
–Adam Jacob

Chef RFCs
❖ https://github.com/opscode/chef-rfc
❖ rfc000 - the RFC process
❖ most RFCs concern technical changes
❖ some will be about process and governance

Chef IRC meetings
❖ rfc001
❖ Every second Thursday at 5pm
❖ Updates from Chef Software
❖ Review RFCs and other business
❖ https://github.com/opscode/chef-community-irc-meetings

Developer Office Hours
❖ https://twitter.com/ChefOfficeHours
❖ "We've traditionally reviewed contributions in these
meetings. That is still the standing agenda, but if you'd
like to come talk about particular pull request, how to
write tests, a feature idea, whatever, please do.” - btm

Community

Community
❖ The community is one of Chef’s greatest assets
❖ For the most part, it’s awesome and welcoming
❖ However, we can’t take that for granted…

Community
❖ https://sethvargo.com/leaving-chef/
❖ http://www.getchef.com/blog/2014/08/27/behaving-responsibly-
in-the-chef-community/

Community
❖ Do your part to help:
❖ Always Be Civil
❖ Be excellent to each other
❖ Call out unexcellent behaviour

Thankyou.