Carolyn Van Slyck

Adventures in Gopher Source

I work in OSS because I enjoy collaborating with people. I’ve made friendships across the globe that are stronger than the ties of whoever our current corporate overlords may be. I’m also a huge UX nerd, and have been known to go “Full Lorax” to give voice to my users, my peoples.

Come @ me

Things have been a bit tense in the gopher-sphere lately. There’s a lack of trust, hurt feelings, and a general sense that we don’t have control over Go’s direction.

I have learned quite a bit after working on dep for the past year. When the vgo prototype was released, I dove right in to figure it out. Both have good ideas baked into them, and both have UX problems that make me twitch. 😉

I am a simple gopher. I’m not great at algorithms, big O-notation, forgot what a b-tree was 10 minutes after graduation, and am constantly failing Dave Cheney’s Go pop quizzes.

But I have a super power: I deeply care about keeping the Go community a place where I am proud to call myself a gopher. As part of Women Who Go, I encourage everyone I meet to join us, and assure them that it’s a fun, safe space to learn and grow. I have also been known to resort to sticker bribery. 😇

So instead of comparing dep and the vgo prototype, weighing-in on which team I am on, here’s what I would rather do: I am making a new team and inviting you all to be a part of it.

Team Gopher

I am going to use my super power, and my experience with dependency management, to shape the native dependency management capabilities of the Go toolchain into something that meets the needs of the entire Go community. And I’m going to need your help.

Here are my goals: * Collaborate on and improve the dependency management that will be built-into the Go toolchain. * Build a great user experience that doesn’t let our fellow gophers down. * Give library authors the control they need to transparently communicate what works with their library, without requiring hacks or manual coordination. * Ensure the community isn’t blocked or otherwise discouraged from innovating on alternate dependency managers.

Together we are going to do some fun things:

  • Become upstream Go contributors!
  • Give feedback on Go as reviewers!
  • Make official Go proposals, get them approved and implemented!
  • Annoy Google with 💖 ALL 🦄 THE 🌈 EMOJI 😎!

If you are new to Go and aren't sure if you are cool enough, join me.

If you are a grizzled veteran who's tired of the state of things, join me.

If you care about the Go community and want to make it better, join me!

Where does she get those wonderful gophers?!

I am on a "Gopher Source" adventure, join me.