Status update May 2020

May was spent mostly on preparation for the Cute Chess hackathon in June.

The annual Cute Chess hackathon is slowly coming together this year despite global pandemic situation. Needless to say, I was pondering whether we should skip it but with proper travel arrangements and following the recommendations from the Finnish institute for health and welfare, we should be OK.

Many types of events are called hackathons. In the context of the Cute Chess project, a hackathon is an event where we (Ilari and I) get to together for 3-4 days and develop Cute Chess. Our meaning for the term is similar to the OpenBSD project.

For these types of events it’s important to have the correct mindset: things are either started, developed or finished during a hackathon. Don’t set the bar too high what you can achieve within 3-4 days.

Since the time is limited, it’s a good idea to do some preliminary preparation. For example, I’ve done some initial review to our pull requests in GitHub. I intend to continue this work for the weeks leading up to the hackathon.

It’s also good idea to have some kind of agenda for technical discussions. For example, my plan is to eventually phase out AppVeyor and Travis (in favor of GitHub actions) but I need a second opinion.

Last but not least: have fun. Play video games and drink beer. The Last of Us Part II will be released just in time for event.