Sprinting Explained

For the development of Zope 3, Tres Seaver at ZC launched a concept called "sprints", based on ideas from the extreme programming (XP) community. A sprint is a three to five day focused development session, in which developers pair in a room and focus on building a particular subsystem.

This model has worked well for the initial Plone sprints. We'd like to open the sprinting to include members of the Plone community. This helps accomplish the goal of getting Plone developed. Additionally, though, this establishes leadership in the community by sharing development approaches, intense sessions of focused communication on a topic, and explaining in person the Plone development model.

A sprint is often organized with a coach leading the session. The coach sets the agenda, uses the whiteboard to track activities, and keeps the development moving. The developers usually work in pairs or small teams similar to the pair programming approach. Some sprints are focused on a specific topic, like internationalization or educational systems.

The sprint approach works best when the first few hours are spent getting oriented. This means having a plan up front, agreeing on who does what, getting everyone's computers working with the SVN server, etc.

Needless to say, a sprint needs a host to provide the space and connectivity. Whiteboards are usually needed. All sprinters should bring their own laptops with ethernet connections or wi-fi.

At the end of the sprint, code is produced and Plone moves forward. This by definition means that sprinters need to sign the Plone Contributor Agreement to work on Plone. This is to make sure the Plone Foundation and Plone itself has sufficient legal protection, something we take very seriously.

How can you help?

At this point I'm sure you're asking, "How can I help if I'm not a Plone or Python coder?". There are two main options:

1. Particpate in the ways you can. People are needed to test, write documentation or simply to report to the rest of the world what is happening at the sprint.
2. Contribute financially. Sponsoring sprints help cover costs for the sprinting or for participants' costs getitng there. Sponsoring Plone sprints is one of the best ways to contribute to Plone's development if you dont have the skills/time do the work yourself.

Contact the core developer list if you want to organize a sprint.

This explanation taken from the original Zope 3 explanation and modified somewhat to fit Plone's version. Thanks, guys :)