Special thanks and appreciation goes to Tim Zabel and Nic Hartley for their contributions this release cycle.

What’s new 🔗

• Bold usernames in message prefixes (#134, Nic Hartley)
• Include filetype in IRC string when a document is uploaded on Telegram (#139, Tim Zabel)
• Include zero-width space in username for join/part messages to group (#139, Tim Zabel)

Additionally, contributor documentation improved. I added contributor guidelines and instructions to set up a development environment. Also, our friends at Ura Design designed our new project logo. Thanks to Ura, we have an awesome project logo and stickers in time for Imagine RIT 2019 later this month!

They're here! Check out our new @uracreative logo and stickers for the #TeleIRC project. Grab some stickers at the @RITlug @Imagine_RIT festival on April 27! pic.twitter.com/KGjT4F0qdY

— RIT Linux Users Group (@RITlug) April 17, 2019

TeleIRC v1.3.1: sprint retrospective 🔗

Originally, we planned to release v1.4 at the end of this sprint. For a number of reasons, this did not happen. We decided to reduce our scope and finish strong with a bugfix release instead of the originally-planned feature release. This retrospective summarizes “lessons learned” for future project sprints with a team of university students.

Extended holidays are sprint bookends 🔗

In the last sprint, our university had a week-long break from classes. Most students use this time to visit family or travel outside of Rochester. Originally, we agreed to pause the sprint and resume when we returned. In retrospect, it didn’t work out like that.

It was harder to start again when we returned from the break. Instead of an extended holiday acting as a pause in an ongoing sprint, extended holiday breaks should divide two separate sprints. The breaks from classes are personal time; working on projects is not possible for everyone. The interruption caused by a break impacts productivity of the team. Therefore, future sprint planning will take the university calendar into consideration.

Adjustable sprint length to semester 🔗

Sprint lengths should have an adjustable length depending on what part of the academic semester the sprint is. For example, earlier this semester, we released v1.3 in a two-week sprint. For this v1.3.1 release, it was over a month. What happened? Should sprints have a variable length?

When working with an academic crowd, variable sprint lengths are worth considering. The first half of a semester typically has less assigned coursework. Final projects are not at play. Therefore, usually team members have more time to invest in the project at the start of a semester. Towards the end of the semester, coursework and class projects pile on and make it difficult to find bandwidth to work on side projects like TeleIRC.

The compromise is keeping our sprints short at the start of a semester and stretching them out as a semester goes on. This gives students more flexibility to work at a pace that encourages quality work but isn’t overwhelming with other responsibilities of being a student. Going forward, we will try variable-length sprints in the Fall 2019 semester.

Get involved with TeleIRC! 🔗

More opportunities are coming to participate with TeleIRC! The team is happy for new people to join us. Opportunities are available for short-term and long-term contributions.

Come say hello in our developer chat rooms, either on IRC or in Telegram! Watch for TeleIRC development reports on my blog for more announcements.

Background photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash.

What’s coming in TeleIRC v1.4 🔗

TeleIRC v1.4 is the next feature release of TeleIRC. The targeted release date for v1.4 is by the end of April 2019 (i.e. the end of the academic semester for students involved with the project). Following v1.4, the project will likely enter brief hibernation until Fall 2019 when the RIT academic semester begins again.

At the developer meeting on March 23rd, we discussed the scope of this sprint and what we felt is realistic for project maintainers to work on:

Primary goals 🔗

• Include limited characters from Telegram replies in relayed IRC message (RITlug/teleirc#51)
• Create doc page on development environment (RITlug/teleirc#77)
• QoL Improvements: show file-type of documents in IRC, insert ZWP character in join/leave messages (RITlug/teleirc#130)
• Allow user to configure more variables for IRC server connection (e.g. port, SSL certs, etc.) (RITlug/teleirc#113)

Secondary goals 🔗

• Add Telegram-side highlighting for IRC messages prefixed with username (RITlug/teleirc#44)
• Bold usernames on Telegram and IRC (RITlug/teleirc#19)

Recap of TeleIRC v1.3 sprint 🔗

The TeleIRC v1.3 release follows the v1.2.2 release on December 8th, 2018. This release is a significant change in how project development is done. For the first time, a special interest group inside of RITlug exists around the project. The team shifted to an agile-like development practice to fit inside of the RIT student academic schedule.

A special shout-out is earned by Tim Zabel for his support and participation as a core contributor during the v1.3 sprint.

Get involved with TeleIRC! 🔗

More opportunities are coming to participate with TeleIRC! We would love to have more people get involved and participate in the project. There is no formal commitment to contributing, although we ask for participation through a single sprint cycle.

Soon, we will have better new contributor on-boarding docs. Our weekly developer meetings are now happening over public audio/video call each Saturday at 15:00 US EDT, so anyone can join and participate.

Come say hello in our developer chat rooms, either on IRC or in Telegram!

Background photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash.

Read on to learn more about what’s coming in TeleIRC v1.3.

What’s coming in TeleIRC v1.3? 🔗

The developers’ meeting focused on identifying critical tasks to work on for the next sprint. The following open issues were identified as essential for v1.3:

• #41: Sending an image with a caption in telegram then editing the caption causes the image to get sent again
• #44: Add Telegram-side highlighting for IRC messages prefixed with username
• #53: multi-line messages should have each lined prefixed with the userid
• #102: Splitting of messages sent to IRC, prepending TG username to each one
• #112: Insert zero-width space in Telegram usernames sent to IRC
• #115: Image url reveals bot’s token
• #118: Refactor documentation into smaller pages (to make it more readable)

Of these, #53 and #102 will be closed by pull request #102. Michał Rudowicz contributed #102 and it should be merged during this sprint window. (Thanks Michał!)

Keep up with more development news by watching the v1.3 milestone on GitHub.

When is TeleIRC v1.3 coming? 🔗

TeleIRC v1.3 is projected for Saturday, March 2nd. For the selected issues, we felt four weeks was sufficient to accomplish and meet all existing goals. If we move faster than expected, we may move items from the v1.4 milestone up to this release.

How can I participate? 🔗

Want to help out or get involved with TeleIRC? We are happy to welcome you! Past contributors have come from all around the world.

Say hello in our Freenode IRC channel, #ritlug-teleirc, or join the Telegram group. You can also look through our “good first issue” tickets in GitHub. If something looks interesting, leave a comment of interest in the GitHub issue and a committer can offer more guidance.

If you are a user and want to share feedback or thoughts with the team, leave a comment on this blog post and they will be shared with the team.

Background photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash.