[12/20/15, 7:56:06 AM] Yu Wu: Hello, P5. This is Yu Wu
[12/20/15, 7:56:13 AM] Yu Wu: How’s going?
[12/20/15, 7:56:20 AM] P5: Hey Yu Wu
[12/20/15, 7:56:26 AM] Yu Wu: Yay
[12/20/15, 7:56:28 AM] P5: All good, thanks.
[12/20/15, 7:56:34 AM] P5: Calling in 5mins
[12/20/15, 7:57:24 AM] Yu Wu: Yep. But can we use text message? If we are going to call, I need further approval from my university…
[12/20/15, 7:57:43 AM] P5: Oh okay
[12/20/15, 7:57:48 AM] P5: Text is fine, no problem
[12/20/15, 7:58:09 AM] Yu Wu: great! Thanks for accomondating
[12/20/15, 7:58:20 AM] P5: Not a problem at all
[12/20/15, 7:58:22 AM] P5: :)
[12/20/15, 7:58:46 AM] P5: So tell me
[12/20/15, 7:59:08 AM] Yu Wu: shall we start now?
[12/20/15, 7:59:12 AM] P5: Yep
[12/20/15, 7:59:17 AM] Yu Wu: Great!
[12/20/15, 7:59:33 AM] Yu Wu: So how many years have you been a professional software engineer?
[12/20/15, 7:59:51 AM] P5: I’ve been since late 2012
[12/20/15, 7:59:58 AM] P5: So 3 years now
[12/20/15, 8:00:12 AM] Yu Wu: I saw you curated many lists on GitHub
[12/20/15, 8:00:25 AM] Yu Wu: What motivates you to do that?
[12/20/15, 8:01:09 AM] P5: Well its like a 2 way thing, one is to keep a track of list for myself. The other is for other people to extend it further.
[12/20/15, 8:01:42 AM] Yu Wu: Interesting. When did you start to realize GitHub might be a service for this purpose?
[12/20/15, 8:01:48 AM] P5: If you see I curated for a lot of things like podcasts, apps, software libraries.
[12/20/15, 8:01:51 AM] Yu Wu: yep
[12/20/15, 8:02:40 AM] P5: I saw a few other people doing the same, for example this one: https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
[12/20/15, 8:02:45 AM] Yu Wu: Aha
[12/20/15, 8:03:27 AM] Yu Wu: Did you learn from those projects to decide the content/format of your own projects?
[12/20/15, 8:03:29 AM] P5: That’s when I thought it would be great to do curated lists on github. And it serves a really convenient tool for this purpose. Collaborating and extending ideas from others.
[12/20/15, 8:04:04 AM] P5: When I first saw the “awesome” project on github, it wasn’t as humongous as it is today.
[12/20/15, 8:04:49 AM] P5: Nope, I just did it the way I felt was good for me. Didn’t decide content for format from other projects.
[12/20/15, 8:05:02 AM] P5: Usually, it is just a simple list.
[12/20/15, 8:05:10 AM] Yu Wu: Got it!
[12/20/15, 8:05:32 AM] Yu Wu: So why did you decide to host those lists on GitHub, instead of, say blog posts, or Wikipedia?
[12/20/15, 8:06:21 AM] P5: Yep, as I said. Github is a really good platform to collaborate. Anyone could come, fork it, extend it and ask me to “Merge” it (update my list).
[12/20/15, 8:06:34 AM] P5: That was the driving reason for choosing Github.
[12/20/15, 8:06:36 AM] P5: Plus..
[12/20/15, 8:07:13 AM] P5: Github has a really easy way to write content in rich format (using Markdown) and view it.
[12/20/15, 8:07:19 AM] P5: Also, it is free :)
[12/20/15, 8:07:33 AM] Yu Wu: Definitely :)
[12/20/15, 8:07:54 AM] Yu Wu: So what is your criteria to decide what to include/exclude from your lists?
[12/20/15, 8:08:26 AM] P5: I will take the example of podcasts for this.
[12/20/15, 8:09:22 AM] P5: 1) First I research what other people listened.
2) Created a list and picked the common podcasts
3) Listen to them
4) Shortlist if I find them good
[12/20/15, 8:09:46 AM] P5: Usually 2) and 4) stay the same. :)
[12/20/15, 8:09:47 AM] Yu Wu: So you personally examined every item that is included?
[12/20/15, 8:09:52 AM] P5: Yep
[12/20/15, 8:09:57 AM] Yu Wu: impressive!
[12/20/15, 8:10:09 AM] P5: I listened to at least a couple of the episodes for the podcasts.
[12/20/15, 8:10:24 AM] Yu Wu: Did you receive many contributions from others for those lists?
[12/20/15, 8:10:41 AM] P5: Not yet
[12/20/15, 8:11:03 AM] P5: I might need to link the list at some discussions etc. to make it visible
[12/20/15, 8:11:14 AM] Yu Wu: I heard from other people that some people might send you resources via email
[12/20/15, 8:11:18 AM] P5: I think it hasn’t been discovered by people yet.
[12/20/15, 8:11:25 AM] Yu Wu: because they are not very familiar with GitHub
[12/20/15, 8:11:50 AM] P5: Ah okay, I would love to see the suggestions
[12/20/15, 8:12:12 AM] P5: So far I haven’t received any such mails though, but it would be great to get more insights
[12/20/15, 8:12:19 AM] P5: ...from others
[12/20/15, 8:12:36 AM] Yu Wu: Yeah, may be your can live your email with the link, so others know how to contact you
[12/20/15, 8:12:55 AM] Yu Wu: Do you find those lists help you?
[12/20/15, 8:13:15 AM] P5: You mean lists from others, like “awesome"?
[12/20/15, 8:13:33 AM] P5: Or the ones I created myself?
[12/20/15, 8:13:54 AM] Yu Wu: let’s go with lists you created yourself first :)
[12/20/15, 8:14:19 AM] P5: Yep, they mainly help me to keep track myself. Mostly like bookmarks.
[12/20/15, 8:14:38 AM] P5: I try to keep them updated as I find more and more things to add.
[12/20/15, 8:15:02 AM] P5: But yea.. to myself, my own lists act as a bookmark or reading list.
[12/20/15, 8:15:39 AM] Yu Wu: What about those awesome-lists? Do you frequently use those as well?
[12/20/15, 8:15:40 AM] P5: Also, as a recommendation whenever someone asks me what is there good to hear. I just link them.
[12/20/15, 8:15:55 AM] P5: Yep, I use some of the awesome lists.
[12/20/15, 8:16:20 AM] P5: They are very well maintained. The only thing sometimes that nags me is that some of them are very long.
[12/20/15, 8:16:44 AM] P5: Which in some sense defeats the purpose
[12/20/15, 8:16:47 AM] Yu Wu: Oh, where did “someone” ask you something good to hear?
[12/20/15, 8:17:07 AM] P5: Usually friends or friends of friends.
[12/20/15, 8:18:14 AM] Yu Wu: How frequently do you use awesome lists?
[12/20/15, 8:18:43 AM] P5: Not very frequently, I use them on as-needed basis.
[12/20/15, 8:19:10 AM] P5: So say if I starting to learn a new tool and need to get started quickly. I might go to the main awesome list and search for it.
[12/20/15, 8:19:11 AM] Yu Wu: so you use those lists instead of search engines?
[12/20/15, 8:19:35 AM] P5: Usually the first place to go to would be search engine if I know what I am exactly looking for.
[12/20/15, 8:20:21 AM] P5: But if I remember I have seen about the thing I am looking for on the awesome list before, I would go there.
[12/20/15, 8:21:08 AM] Yu Wu: Aha, so you did find those lists useful
[12/20/15, 8:21:12 AM] P5: Yep
[12/20/15, 8:21:48 AM] Yu Wu: I’m wondering are there other benefits those lists you created have brought to you?
[12/20/15, 8:22:26 AM] P5: Pretty much only what we’ve talked about so far
[12/20/15, 8:22:52 AM] Yu Wu: Do you know if someone else is using your lists?
[12/20/15, 8:22:58 AM] P5: Nope
[12/20/15, 8:23:12 AM] Yu Wu: I think GitHub now provide “traffic” feature
[12/20/15, 8:23:17 AM] Yu Wu: where you can see your visitors
[12/20/15, 8:23:32 AM] P5: Aha, I haven’t checked it out yet.
[12/20/15, 8:23:38 AM] P5: Would be interesting, something like Analytics?
[12/20/15, 8:23:42 AM] Yu Wu: I just knew yesterday ..
[12/20/15, 8:23:43 AM] Yu Wu: yeah
[12/20/15, 8:23:48 AM] P5: Cool
[12/20/15, 8:24:01 AM] P5: It’d be interesting to try it out
[12/20/15, 8:24:10 AM] Yu Wu: Did you capture any disadvantage of your current curation project? What are those disadvantages?
[12/20/15, 8:24:50 AM] P5: One of the disadvantage is one you already mentioned, people who don’t know how to use Github. They cannot contribute directly to the lists.
[12/20/15, 8:25:11 AM] Yu Wu: Yeah, that’s definitely a barrier
[12/20/15, 8:25:13 AM] Yu Wu: what about others?
[12/20/15, 8:26:43 AM] P5: Another one is not a disadvantage though, but a caution. The lists sometimes could be very opinion driven. Like the things listed could be based on ones taste.
[12/20/15, 8:27:13 AM] P5: Besides that I don’t see any disadvantage.
[12/20/15, 8:27:39 AM] Yu Wu: What out outdated resources? Do you constantly add/delete things from your lists in order to keep your lists up-to-date?
[12/20/15, 8:28:27 AM] P5: Yes, I try to remove outdated or discontinued things. I have done that with the Apps list I guess. But recently I haven’t updated the list. I have to take a look at all of them once to bring them to date.
[12/20/15, 8:29:17 AM] Yu Wu: Great! Do you plan to maintain your lists for a long time
[12/20/15, 8:29:35 AM] P5: Yes I do. For as long as could.
[12/20/15, 8:30:02 AM] Yu Wu: And do you plan to create more lists?
[12/20/15, 8:30:23 AM] P5: For now there aren’t any plans, I will create if I see that I missed something.
[12/20/15, 8:30:41 AM] P5: For now I think I have lists for almost all things I could maintain well.
[12/20/15, 8:30:55 AM] P5: I have one on my mind
[12/20/15, 8:30:59 AM] Yu Wu: OH?
[12/20/15, 8:31:02 AM] P5: List of curated PS4 games :)
[12/20/15, 8:31:05 AM] Yu Wu: hahaha
[12/20/15, 8:31:11 AM] Yu Wu: That would be awesome
[12/20/15, 8:31:17 AM] P5: I just got one for Christmas :D
[12/20/15, 8:31:19 AM] Yu Wu: awesome-ps4-games maybe
[12/20/15, 8:31:26 AM] P5: Yep
[12/20/15, 8:31:40 AM] Yu Wu: I will definitely star and watch your list
[12/20/15, 8:31:47 AM] P5: Great!
[12/20/15, 8:31:48 AM] Yu Wu: which I badly in need
[12/20/15, 8:31:55 AM] Yu Wu: ok, that’s pretty much all I have
[12/20/15, 8:32:00 AM] Yu Wu: do you have other comments or suggestions?
[12/20/15, 8:32:01 AM] P5: Alright cool
[12/20/15, 8:32:18 AM] P5: Nothing in particular, I think you’ve got it covered pretty well
[12/20/15, 8:32:25 AM] Yu Wu: If something come up in the future, can I follow up with you?
[12/20/15, 8:32:36 AM] P5: Yep sure, feel free to drop a mail
[12/20/15, 8:33:08 AM] Yu Wu: ok, great, thank you so much P5!
[12/20/15, 8:33:12 AM] Yu Wu: I really appreciate your help
[12/20/15, 8:33:30 AM] Yu Wu: Have a wonderful weekend and merry christmas!
[12/20/15, 8:33:31 AM] P5: Not a problem at all, glad to be helpful!
[12/20/15, 8:33:42 AM] P5: You too have a great holiday season ahead!
[12/20/15, 8:33:50 AM] Yu Wu: Aha thanks!
[12/20/15, 8:33:51 AM] P5: Have a good one, cheers!
[12/20/15, 8:33:56 AM] Yu Wu: Yep, see you later!