Teaching Ubuntu App Development topic

At the virtual UDS in November we talked about having events where local communities could learn more about app development for Ubuntu for the first time. Since then we have come a long way:

• We have some really nice materials set up.


• The first events were held in a number of places around the world.


• We got feedback and improved our docs.


• Before the Ubuntu Global Jam and the release parties for 14.04 LTS we will have two Q&A sessions where you can ask all organisational and technical questions you might have.

You don’t have to do everything yourself!

When we started the initiative, we first talked to members of the Ubuntu community who knew a bit of app development already. Many of them liked the idea, but didn’t quite know how to set up an event or how to organise everything. We tried to address this by bringing them in touch with some of the LoCo teams which helped in a bunch of cases where events have already happened or are going to happen quite soon. We want more of this to happen.

It’s only understandable that you can’t do everything yourself, or that one person’s skills lie in a more organisational field and somebody else has some more experience with app development. Bringing the two together, we are going to have more interesting events, more people introduced to writing apps for Ubuntu, which will be great for everyone involved.

Getting started

Sounds good so far? Here’s what you can do to get more folks exposed to how sweet and easy it is to write apps for Ubuntu.

As somebody who can organise events, but might need to find a speaker: Ask in #ubuntu-app-devel on Freenode or on the ubuntu-app-devel@ mailing list, to see if anyone is in your area to give a talk. Ask on your LoCo’s or LUG’s mailing list as well. Even if somebody who’s into programming hasn’t developed using Ubuntu’s SDK yet, they should be able to familiarise themselves with the technologies quite easily.

As somebody who has written code before and didn’t find the Ubuntu app development materials too challenging, but might need to find some help with organising the event: Ask on the loco-contacts@ mailing list. There are LoCos all around the world and most of them will be happy to see somebody give a talk at an event.

Whichever camp you’re in:

• Check out our docs. They explain what’s required to make the event a success.


• Join our Q&A sessions at 26 March 2014, 09:00 UTC or 27 March 2014, 18:00 UTC on Ubuntu on Air.


• Talk to us. Just comment on the post and we can surely help you out somehow.

Let’s make this happen together. Writing apps for Ubuntu and publishing them has never been easier, and they’ll make Ubuntu on phones/tablets much more interesting, and will run on the desktop as well.