Before becoming a Gopher, Ashley was a professional photographer, which explains her talent and dedication to creating unique Gopher artwork. However, she found that photography wasn’t paying the bills and with a family to feed, she turned to programming. Prior to enrolling at Hackbright Academy (a software engineering bootcamp for women), Ashley had done some front-end work building websites for photographers and working on SEO. Bootcamp had promised to teach her all of the things you need to know to be an engineer, but despite having the “official” business card 12 weeks later, she didn’t feel like a Software Engineer. Ashley found herself writing Python and working as a Community Manager at Rackspace, which is when she met a Gopher who would completely change her trajectory. In 2014, Ashley met and became quick friends with Steve Francia @spf13, who made her abandon Python and never look back. Steve had been teaching an introductory course to Go, and urged Ashley to help teach the course, where her fresh perspective on Go was an asset. Ever since then, Ashley has been a valued member and a key contributor in building the Go community. Join this session to learn how teaching others (even though Ashley was new herself) got her involved in an awesome open source community and ultimately changed her career path. Ashley will share how she contributed without committing code, and her lessons and tips on how anyone can get involved in OSS communities and make an impact.

1. 1
MY JOURNEY TO GO

2. 2
ABOUT ME

3. 3
I SPENT MOST OF
MY LIFE OUTSIDE
OF THE UNITED
STATES

4. 4
I USED TO BE A
PHOTOGRAPHER

5. 5
I MAKE GOPHERS
Lots and lots of gophers…

6. 6
ALSO,
GOPHERIZE.ME

7. 7
THIS IS MY
FIRST KEYNOTE

8. 8
ART & PIZZA

9. 9
THE DECISION TO
CODE.

10. 10
TFW YOU GO
TO A
BOOTCAMP
AND SUPER REGRET IT.

11. 11

12. 12
ACCIDENTAL GOPHER

13. 13
BLAME STEVE
FRANCIA
TWITTER: @SPF13

14. 14
NOBODY
SUCCEEDS ALONE

15. 15
WE NEED PEOPLE TO BE INVESTED IN OUR
SUCCESS
@GOINGGODOTNET
@MATRYER
@MARKBATES
@DAVECHENEY
@MBBROBERG
@BRADFITZ
@JBEDA
@FRANCESC
@SPF13
@LITTLEIDEA
@BKETELSEN
@KELSEYHIGHTOWER
@JESSFRAZ
@KRISNOVA
@ERIKSTMARTIN
@CARLISIA

16. 16
JUST SAY YES.
WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD
HAPPEN?

17. 17
CONTRIBUTING
& ELIMINATING
EXCUSES

18. 18
I’m not a very
good programmer.“

19. 19
I don’t have a
lot of time.“

20. 20
I don’t know what
project to work
on.“

21. 21
MYTH: YOU HAVE
TO BE A
PROGRAMMING
WIZARD TO
CONTRIBUTE

22. 22
THREE
THINGS
Projects need
contributions
from people of
all skill levels
& expertise

23. 23
A SMALL
CONTRIBUTION
IS BETTER
THAN NO
CONTRIBUTION

24. 24
THE BEST
PROJECT TO
START WORKING
ON IS ONE
THAT YOU USE
ALREADY.

25. 25
WHERE
TO
START

26. 26
WHAT ARE YOU
GOOD AT
RIGHT NOW?

27. 27
LISTENING
Listening is the best way to know
what the project needs.

28. 28
SHHHH... WE’RE
LISTENING
IRC,
REDDIT..
BLOGS
MAILING
LISTS
3
1 2

29. 29
WORKING WITH
TICKETS
Code is the heart of any
open source project, but
don’t think that writing
code is the only way to
contribute.
Often bugs are fixed in
the codebase but tickets
reported about them don’t
get updated in the
ticketing system.
Close fixed bugs2
Bugs are often poorly
reported. Diagnosing and
triaging a bug can help
save developers time.
Diagnose a bug1

30. 30
WORKING WITH
CODE
Programmers of all
experience levels can
help with the code in
the project. Don’t think
that you have to be a
coding genius to make
real contributions to
your favorite project.
This is normally where
people want to start.
Fix a bug2
Any project that’s designed to
run on multiple platforms can
have all sorts of portability
problems.
Test a beta or release
candidate1
Write a test
Moar tests, please.
3
Add a comment
Are you confused? So is
someone else.
4

31. 31
DOCS, DOCS, DOCS
IT’S AS THOUGH THIS
MANUAL EXPECTS THAT I
ALREADY KNOW HOW TO USE
THE PACKAGE

32. 32
WORK WITH COMMUNITY
Open source is only partly about code. Community makes open source
work. Here are ways you can help build it up.
If you’ve got a
blog, write about
your experiences
with the project
that you’re using.
Most programmers
don’t have
design talents.
The best way to
help build the
community is by
helping others.
WRITE A BLOG POST IMPROVE A WEBSITEANSWER A QUESTION

33. 33
PAY IT FORWARD
GIVE MORE THAN
YOU RECEIVE.

34. 34
DON’T BE TOO
PROUD TO ACCEPT
HELP WHEN IT’S
OFFERED.
“

35. 35
IT’S OKAY TO
FAIL
WE ALL DO IT, AND ANYONE THAT
SAYS OTHERWISE IS LYING.

36. 36
WE ARE A COMMUNITY
OF CODERS, BUT IF
ALL WE DO IS CODE
THEN WE'VE LOST
THE COMMUNITY

37. 37
@ASHLEYMCNAMARA
THANK YOU