VMware{code} Hackathon: One for All and All for One

When I first heard about the VMware{code} Hackathon at VMworld 2016 US, I was excited, but also felt a bit trepidatious. I was keenly interested in attending, but wasn’t a “developer”. How much of a contribution could I make? As many wise folks have said, to grow you have to move outside of your comfort zone. So, I signed up, and boy am I glad I did.

Hack-a-What?

So, what exactly is a hackathon? A hackathon is a time-limited intense collaboration where groups of people work on technology development, typically software. In the case of the VMware{code} Hackathon, teams predominantly tackled operations related development efforts. Updating Alan Renouf’s vCheck script, visualizing VMware-based telemetry, autoscaling vSphere groups, creating vSphere DSC resources, and validating NSX via test driven development (TDD).

This worked well for this crowd, as it was mostly made up of operations focused folks. Nary a proper “developer” among us. Needless to say I was far more comfortable with this group than had it been heavily programmer focused. These are my people!

Besides Food & Bevvies

What do you get out of a hackathon besides some free food and drink? Personally I found it very rewarding to collaborate with like-minded people, striving to build something together. Team members rooted for each other, helping where they could, while focusing on delivering their piece of the collective solution. There were a few interested drop-ins as well. People who weren’t on any team, but were interested in the event and wanted to learn more and pitch in a bit.

To me, this was an example of a community in a bottle. A time and space limited event where teamwork thrived and ideas flowed as easily as the beverages. Unfortunately the four hours allotted to the VMware{code} Hackathon proved too fleeting for most teams to deliver something resembling a working prototype. A few did manage it.

Worth Repeating

The hackathon was my favourite event at VMworld. I’m hoping that it becomes a staple of the VMworld conferences. By all accounts the version of the event held at VMworld 2016 Europe was a bit bigger and just as well received, which is an excellent sign. How would I try to improve it in future? Attracting more interested participants is key, I believe.

If it were up to me, I’d love to see the Hackathon take up a whole day, say the Saturday before VMworld. That way not only will we get to cheer each other on, relish the friendly rivalry,  and savour the satisfaction of building a thing, but we’ll have built that much more community to celebrate and enjoy.