Communities of Practice are a group of people who share knowledge and experience in benefit of an endeavor (Wenger, 2011). I barely oversee the impact of all communities of practice that I know. From open-source (Liferay, and Wildfly) communities to the Java Community Process (JCP), I participated in software development groups. Most recently, I have minor participation in the Training Center for career mentorship. In all of them, sharing knowledge and experiences works differently and helps shape the world somehow.
Experience and the importance of Opensource
As a software developer, it’s simply impossible, or almost impossible, to don’t have contact with any open-source project. For most of my career, I worked with Java, and because of that, I became a member of the Java Community Process (JCP). Initially, I entered to understand how the community works. I was interested in understanding the definition and approval process.
Initially, I downloaded the source code of Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and some reference implementation of different specifications. I tried to modify them at first without success, and after some time, I started reporting with some bugs that I found over my daily practice. Nowadays, I only vote on some committees but without much interaction, mainly because my interests changed over time.
The importance of opensource it’s greater than just the construction of software. It shapes the definition standards and policies (Corrado, no date) and even the governance models of complex organizations (Are Ipos Really Underpriced? by Bhaskaran Swaminathan, Amiyatosh Purnanandam :: SSRN, no date), and related economics the propagation of “Blockchain” and the rise of cryptocurrencies.
Mentorship network
Another example is less formal and dedicated to building a network of mentees and mentors in Brazil. It’s an initiative named the Training Center (TC). It’s a simple project published on GitHub where anyone who needs a mentor and anyone who want to be a mentor posts their contact. This group, as some instructions of how and better engage in this specie of relationship.
I found the TC especially vital because it helps build a relationship that transfers the experience between many professionals’ levels. In the last few months, I contributed with some hours of my personal life with some people that need some sort of advice in Software Development. I transparently shared my experience. My goal with this activity is to give back all the help that I received freely over my career.
Joining a community
Over the context of participating in a community of game development, I subscribed to the Reddit topic /r/gamedev and followed some topics. It is an unpretentious initiative to create a new relationship directly related to game development.
It’s common knowledge of the importance of marketing on the success of a commercial product. Linking game development and the audience in a similar way as an open-source is a good strategy from my point of view. Building a user base that can test the game in the early stages and provide feedback freely is an excellent way to manage risks, create a community, and publish it. Some good example that I found recently is Descender (GDC, 2019) and Core Defense (Case study: making Core Defense a solo dev success, no date).
Since this is topic communicates directly with one of the mines mostly missed reflexive domains, the Interpersonal Domain, I still feel that I need to learn much more about how to participate and engage. I still miss a getting started tutorial to engage in communities.
References
Are Ipos Really Underpriced? by Bhaskaran Swaminathan, Amiyatosh Purnanandam :: SSRN (no date). Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=281199 (Accessed: 3 January 2021).
Case study: making Core Defense a solo dev success (no date). Available at: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SimonCarless/20201203/374683/Case_study_making_Core_Defense_a_solo_dev_success.php (Accessed: 3 January 2021).
Corrado, E. (no date) ‘The Importance of Open Access, Open Source, and Open Standards…’, Open Source, p. 7.
GDC (2019) Game Discoverability Day: Building a Community for Your Game from Scratch. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg7tRh0k_a8&ab_channel=GDC (Accessed: 3 January 2021).
Wenger, E. (2011) ‘Communities of practice: A brief introduction’. Available at: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/11736 (Accessed: 3 January 2021).
Lucas Souza 