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Once again, we had lots of ideas for this Just-do-it-Day, which unfortunately could not all be implemented - after all, everyone can only work on one topic. In addition to very technical topics, Scrum or other topics are always included - and made in, our partner agency that knows a thing or two about design, was also involved for the first time this year. The Just-do-it-Day should not only be a platform to test things, but also to strengthen the partnership between the agencies. The following topics were the most popular:
TYPO3 8.0
The eighth version of the TYPO3 content management system is currently available. However, as no customer projects are currently being migrated to TYPO3 8.0, the Just-do-it-Day was a good opportunity for those who have not yet had the chance to try out TYPO3 8.0 to do so now. The conclusion: It's fast, it has a great responsive layout, just like TYPO3 7.6 LTS, and our developers like it. We are definitely looking forward to the next versions with further improvements.
Layout tests with Galen
We are already using layout testing productively, but there is a wide range of tools to choose from. A day like Just-do-it-Day is therefore ideal for trying out other tools. We tested Galen and we like it. Galen is particularly suitable when it is to be used for layout testing on a customer's live instance. Galen is one of the few tools that does not make direct screenshot comparisons, but instead checks whether certain previously defined design elements are correctly positioned and whether they are visible at all. This is helpful for usability and development.
Bots & beacons
"Something with beacons" was the original name of the topic. There were already many ideas for possible applications. At the same time, Florian Franke from made in came around the corner with the idea of dealing with the topic of bots. In 2016, bots are an exciting innovation for initial support contact or the configuration of services. Examples of this are the Slack Bot or the Telegram Bot. In the end, we decided to combine the two and slim them down so that the project could be completed in one day. So, with our 20th company anniversary in mind, we programmed and designed a bot that enables dialogs with people who have something to do with the company's history, in our example Kasper Skaarhoj, the inventor of TYPO3. The bot is activated when you come close to a beacon that is to be placed on a table. The conversation can be conducted on a mobile device by clicking on predefined answers.
3D printer
We also had a 3D printer at this year's Just-do-it-Day - albeit more for fun than for customer projects. But it was fun nonetheless. We used our 3D printer to print an SD card toaster, a vase and a few cable clips as small giveaways for the recent Inspiring Conference.
Chief Monitoring
We have also done something for our hosting. Over the past few weeks, we have tried out many new tools and techniques on our hosting. We have now also installed the reporting tool for our Chef server to see how it can help us. After the test at the Just-do-it-Day, the system is now in productive use and shows us the status of the nodes communicating with the Chef Server reliably and clearly. If a provisioning fails, we can immediately see which server is affected and can react accordingly.
Vagrant-Box with FreeBSD and ZFS
Most of our development work now takes place within Vagrant environments. To start a project within Vagrant, you need a so-called base box, which contains the desired target operating system and a few minimal adjustments for working with Vagrant. However, the boxes with FreeBSD available from Hashicorp, the company behind Vagrant, all still use the original BSD file system "UFS". Since we are absolutely dependent on the more modern ZFS for some of our projects, the task was to build a corresponding box ourselves.
And which tool would be better suited for this than ... Vagrant? At the end of the day, we had a Vagrant project that downloads a standard box from Hashicorp with a command, starts it and uses it to build a ZFS-based box - goal achieved.
Collegial advice
Last but not least: In addition to all the technical topics, there was also a team that dealt with the process of the method of mutual collegial consultation and support and discussed the possibilities of implementation in our company. The method was tested using a case study and was found to work well. In order to be able to use the method in the future, it was decided to practise it among the Scrum Masters first. This ensures that it can be applied correctly, purposefully and confidently.
All in all, the Just-do-it-Day was once again a successful day on which we learned a lot. And to make the transfer of knowledge even greater, we concluded the day by presenting all the results to the entire workforce.
