I’m at the Developers’ Meeting at KohaCon 2009 and they just went around the table with Tips & Tricks - here are my notes (sorry it’s not cleanly written):

Chris - Git has a built in garbage collector $ git gc - if you run it after creating a branch and before checking it out, makes switch branches much faster (make a branch, run this and then checkout the branch).  Also cluster ssh http://sourceforge.net/projects/clusterssh/ is a handy tool

Jesse - has a simple shell script that builds the environment

Joe - has a script he makes on different servers that he uses to get his shell to where he wants it to be for testing, it sets his self created variables and standard values (http://blogs.liblime.com/developers/2009/04/19/simple-shell-trick/).  Also he posted a good tip on the LibLime blog: http://blogs.liblime.com/developers/2009/04/10/simple-git-trick-for-bash/

Thomas - it’s important to remember that the real world of records is much more complicated than the record you see most frequently, so when testing things trying the really hard MARC records (Josh has a test file of really tough MARC records) will give you a better test base.  In the real world, you will find typos in ISBNs printed in the book - ISBNs that can’t possible be right or match our matching rules.  And also remember that records will lie about their encoding all of the time - and they seem to prefer it that way. 

Galen - One of the things that he does since he can’t claim to have the visual design skills that Owen does - he has become a real stickler about the HTML that is on the OPAC & Staff client - making it appear as XHTML.  There are tools in Firefox that can make for a good development environment: Fire Bug, for validation the HTML validator plugin in excellent at doing it quickly without submitting your site to an online validator, Firefox accessibility plugin lets you run automated tests against your site to meet requirements for ADA, Also the web developer plugin, Yahoo! Dev tools are slow, but they provide valuable info.  Something that is useful, but not a dev tool, is the Zotero plugin (citation manager) www.zotero.org — geared toward people to do lots of research online.  

Corey - Hasn’t done much dev work, but as far as install goes, if you install on red hat linux make sure you have lots of caffeine and the RPM packages

Agnes - Adds to Corey’s comment by saying she repeats his comment for 64 bit Zebra

Brendan - Fetch & Pull do not to the same thing!  He likes the graphical SQL interface and uses Cocoa (http://sourceforge.net/projects/freshmeat_mysql-cocoa/)

Everyone - Use Screen: http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

Danny - took notes too: http://dbouman.blogspot.com/2009/04/general-koha-tips-and-tricks.html

Technorati Tags: kohacon09

Three years ago, Koha users and developers from around the world met up to discuss the future of the project. It is now time for us all to meet again, this time on U.S. soil. This conference is not just a great way for Koha community members to put faces with names (and online aliases), but a great way to get the community together to discuss what matters to us and learn from others around the world.

Please take a minute to read the press release and register for the conference ASAP so that we can get an accurate head count. This is a great learning experience - and registration is free - so it’s well worth attending!

Technorati Tags: koha, kohacon09

Please mark your calendars for KohaCon 2009. From David Schuster’s announcement today:

KohaCon 2009 will be held in Plano, TX April 16 and 17.

This is a FREE conference. There is no registration fee, but we are
requesting that all attendees pre-register. Details (travel, hotels, agenda draft, etc) can
be found at:

Koha WIKI: http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=kohacon2009

There is a “Tentative Schedule” - it will change as more people sign up
probably for programs. Travel information along with Hotel accomodation
information. Lunch and dinners will be on your own. Feel free to contact
any of the three people listed on the Wiki at the top or email me directly.

After the conference, there will be a three-day Koha developers meeting in Plano on April 18 through 20. All who develop for Koha, want to develop for Koha, or are interested in Koha development are welcome to attend.