# IPFS Colorado test day notes

## B

### Background
I work in IT for *** Health, doing interfaces. Finally got my boss to let me come up here on co. time. He is bothered by interoperability between hospitals. He's chief data officer, and i have his ear.

### Done any IPFS dev?
Set up some tax records on the DNS, a couple other small things.

### How did you learn IPFS?
Google, which probably led me to the docs. It got IPFS working for me. I return to it on occasion.

### If you were learning IPFS for the first time, what might you expect...
- Install: Command lines, binary. I'd do this first.
- Overview: Pictures, blockchains, content-addressing (or under concepts?)
- Concepts: I suppose concepts would be pieces of Overview
- How-tos: First place i'd go after installing
- Would like a how-to on blogging
- IPFS with Web 3
- API & CLI: I was thinking about this with my work. How i put a file onto it eg
- Support: I never really reach out to support, because it doesn't work. And i'm a hermit, i don't have a social profile. (Agrees that he prefers to bash away at something on his own)
- Project: Something filecoin, what's next, world domination. The One File System that runs the world.

### What would you click?
- IPFS with others, because that's why i'm here.
- Usage ideas: i saw that on your github page. The O'Reilly Cookbooks are very helpful.
- CIDs etc: I have to come down three steps. (re the deeper-level nesting) Can get unusable when it's too deep, especially if it's just a few things. The topics themselves are good.
- Integration: May not make sense to others. Eg cloudflare?
- How-tos: (stuff. cool.)
- API: Etherscan has a live tool where you can enter commands in the browser window
- Project: (Do you care?) Not now.
- Related projects: Would expect this, but i don't know what most of those are.

### Nothing here yet: tell me how you feel?
**I don't know if it's a problem with the network.** If it's hosted on IPFS, presumably you'd get something. **There should be a text area: write something down, please help.** (Hadn't scrolled at this point.) No content, you can add some! It's cute, but it doesn't really help me. I'm hung up on the idea that it should be a blank text box: submit it.

---

## I

### What's your familiarity with IPFS?
Been playing with Textile for an app, got first place in (name) hack contest, app hashes image to ensure that it hasn't been manipulated.

### Is that your primary work project?
About half of my time, it's how I make money now. Through NIST and other orgs running hackthons.

### What are your end goals for using dweb tech in general?
Philosophically? I believe in its power to combat corruption. I think centralization helps a few people; I'd like to help society.

### How did you learn IPFS?
I think IPFS has some tutorials online? (Protoschool) Tried Textile, but it's too buggy. But learned some through their material.

### Did you use IPFS docs?
Probably! ... (looks) Yes. We wanted a node on a mobile mesh network, but went to textile when we found there was IPFS had no mobile implementation. Concepts were useful, but the guides weren't.

### Put yourself in your shoes before you started developing IPFS. What would you expect whent clicking...
- Install: Different OSes i could install on
- Overview: What is IPFS. Why you'd use it. Why you wouldn't use it (which i find helpful)
- Concepts: I know CID would be in there. I wouldn't know what else.
- How-twos: How to upload files. How to GET a file. CID, basic stuff on IPFS.
- API: Super detailed, all the methods and functions. Are there ___ for IPFS?
- Support: Ask for help, forums
- Roadmap: Timeline, maybe a blog
- Related projects: What uses IPFS already

### Expand what you're interested in, and tell me what you think

### Install
(Laughs) I just expected the different OSes.

### Overview
Would read through and ensure I understood everything

### Concepts
See if there's anything i missed

### Do you download and install first, generally?
I would definitely read about it first, eg so i knew what functions to call.

### API: How important is it to have a sandbox to play online with API calls?
I tend to not play with those. I like to set up my own environment. I probably should use them more, but maybe my own OCD makes me want to set it up myself. Everything should work in the browser. I wouldn't expect everything to be available in the sandbox (which is part of the hesitance to use them). Used them with the protoschool tutorials (had to).

### Which of these bottom options do you care about?
If i'm having trouble, the support *might* be useful. I'd probably just google it/use Stack Overflow. IRC i wouldn't assume was very active. I'd rather see Slack.

### What would you do to learn about a new language or technology?
If it was a go library, i'd just install it. If it was a new language or something, i'd read about it first.

### Would you find a glossary page helpful?
I'd rather have those words highlighted so i could click on them.

### Anything that was a particular struggle with IPFS?
I don't understand how it could find a file quickly. ... We were using images, pinned, and it found them pretty quick. I'm sure it could be explained in a paragraph or two.

---

## D

### What would you expect to see in each?
Install: Take me directly into what to do install
Overview: Why should I care? Then take me back to install, to get hooked up.
Concepts: IPLD? Hashing? Tutorials and help might be similar. Higher level than how-tos.
How-tos: Actually using the tools
API: First will look for js here
CLI: I presumed it would be nested in with API?? If developing locally, makes sense
Project & roadmap: yep
Related projects: Are we referring to DAT, etc?

### Install
It's a little confusing, why are there different versions? I just want to install. I've seen the flow of Overview at top, Get started next. New to IPFS...desktop client?? Either I am a client user, or someone who wants to build with IPFS.

### Overview
Looks good, but Glossary would be bundled in with footnotes, eg. Not bad to have it more than one place. Tool tips integration would be cool (we asked about that). LinkedIn previews might be a good example.

### Concepts
How much does Overview need to connect to these concepts? All good. Further breakdown required for some? Actually spell out some things and put acronym after in parens.

Some think of IPFS as "instant distributed file storage." So pinning services, eg, might be good to highlight here, asap, so people don't think it's built in. Immutability of *addressing* vs the persistence of data is key.

### How-tos
Customize IPFS repo: what do you mean by a repo?
- How do I understand or define my peers?
- Would love to see
- pinning by default
- discovering/plugging into peers
- pubsub
- search/finding files
- charitable donation of your disk space. Highlight the distributed nature again here
- (Simpleaswater sidebar here)
- Maybe host "files" as opposed to a "website," because really it's just a way to display a file. Maybe Integrations with the existing web is where we bring this back in.
- Hosting a website/in browser probably a lot of overlap
- A lot of docs tools would be cool to see here

### APIs
- I would love to see forkable examples

### CLI
Yep

### Support & community
- Is IRC the primary channel?
- Would love to see youtube channel
- Contribute: more than just developers who can contribute. So highlight that we are open source. Address the relationship to PL

### Project & roadmap
Roadmap: Note open source here, too. "You can help us get there!"

### Related projects

### Nothing here yet page
Simpleaswater is doing this, too. Feels genuine. Could we do an iframe and drop in the issue? If the "other sources" aren't a really good match, they might be distracting rather than helpful. Maybe move the "how important is this" feature up to the top. "Not yet" > "How important?" Bump up the "help us" call to action, make it exciting.

---

## R
He has some familiarity with PL.

### Why do you care about IPFS / the dweb? What are you areas of focus?
Freelance developer since early '80s.

COBOL, then C, C++, then Embedded. Then management-infomation systems, and have been "stuck" in back-end technologies. So has been paying attention to blockchain, etc.

Has done the four featured IPFS tutorials (just a few days ago). Hashes, dweb is exciting to him.

Wonders: What are the realities of implementing it?

Read Life After Google, which covers some dweb matl.

### What do you think might live underneath these navigation options?
Install: How to install the actual app
Overview: What it is, how it works,
Concepts: Similar to the tutorials I did, terminology connected to the
How-to: Hands on, step-by-step. Takes a certain type of person (to do without how-tos). Not necessarily in the order you'd go (since it doesn't put install at the top). But that's fine.
API: Documentation into everything you can do with it. Reminds me of in 80s and 90s, you'd get a book and read cover to cover.
CLI commands: "CLI" didn't register right away. If you're stuck in the microsoft world, eg, this could be a hiccup.
Support & community: How can you reach out to people to ask any questions. Community would be the ecosystem. Exciting, because indicates that there are supporters already.
Project & roadmap: The *actual* project of IPFS, which very interested to know about.
Related projects: (Seems that he thinks this is applications which use IPFS, as opposed to our internal projects)

### (Digs into subs)
Install: I expected more "download this file" from this url. Installing is not a big deal.
Overview: Interested in the first two especially.
Concepts: Already have a feel for the first two, but would still click those. Existing web: It's not the exciting part of IPFS, but it's important for how things are now. I didn't know there was a gateway. Curious to know how I make things successful, how to link things, etc.

It's much more inviting than (the current site).

### Do you think you'd find what you need to do, based on how the how-tos are organized?
Not so much.

### What would you want to learn to do?
I still want more overview-type stuff. (Re protoschool) without the hands-on, you don't retain it. So I would look over the API. ... I would generally want to go to the API. If I saw that my need wasn't obvious in the API, I might look in the how-tos.

There's usually something the API doesn't cover. But I'm more interested in getting my wits around the whole thing (as opposed to specific how-tos).

### API/js-ipfs: Would this give you a good starting point?
Didn't know there were both js and go. Learned javascript (js or js-ipfs??) by doing tutorials.

### What would first interest you among these bottom three options (not incl footer)?
I wonder how big the community is. Hadn't occurred to me there are meetups. Forums are interesting. Status of implementation (roadmap). All are interesting.

### Any pieces missing, as someone new?
No, doesn't look like it.

### No content here page
It just looks like "404" to me. Looks fine, of course you want things to be complete. Better than 404, clearly not an error. Immutability isn't a good topic, because that's too basic.
If you can't tell me this, then I'm stuck. The protoschool tutorial here covers immutability, and it did help me.
The other topics seem fine.
Would you click? Sometimes I click just to vent. Generally feels that it's a black hole. If I get an email back, I know that I'm in the system. If I get a follow-up later, even better.

---

## M

Moved back to Boulder from (city) this year, doing dweb stuff as a hobby but hoping to make it more of his main work.

### Tell us about your familiarity with IPFS so far.
I've known about it for a while, you guys are trying to get the filecoing online but it's not there yet the incentives aren't in place. i feel like I should know more, i fell that way about a lot of things in the crypto blocchain space.
I'm learning about bitcoin protocol, for example
I know it's a hash table and ittakes positives of git, bittorant, http and puts them in one protocol. i'm really interested in distributed decentralized storage.
I'm building some things in early stages that will rpoably use ipfs. It seems likes its the leader in what it's trying to do.
I don't know if they were at devcon a saw a tweet on storj on IFPS, I didn't know that wa spossible. I thought those were competitive.

### Tell us about your familiarity with dweb so far.

see above

### Do you use this stuff in your ordinary life? Your working life?

I'm trying to get it to be my main jam. I went to a bootcamp in seattle but iw ish i would have done that here. lived here before, moved to seattle and them oved back in may. I know theres so many wallets out there but the way i see it ...
(connection dropped)

He's thinking a whole lot about using ipfs to build something wallet based.

### What are your main goals for using/learning how to use dweb technologies?

wants to build a wallet app ... maybe

### Tell me how you learn about new languages/tech/etc? How did (if appropriate) you learn to use IPFS?

how did i find out? probably just ran into it online and went ot website it was probably a year and a half or two years ago. I didn't dive in to all the details though. with alot of these things i dove in with a lot of the details of how it works but not the necessary protocol stuff.

i have some udemy courses, ivon lilloquist youtube academy course. a lot of it is just MDN, stack overflow, googling stuff.

I've scrolled through ipfs docs but i haven't started using it in developing. but i'm at the point now where i can see myself using it in more depth

### Demo: Docs IA workflowy

**Going over the high level nav**

install ipfs: you'll probably have the commands to install it but also "just click on the button on the website" for the mac windows linux etc installers
overview: kind of what it is. i have an oreilly book where the author talks about ipfs a little bit, he just describes how it takes the positives of bittorent, git, http etc. I read on yoru website about how you were aiming to eventually replace http, but i don't know how you would do that. is ipfs also for sending packets? I'd expect to learn about that in the overview. Or if it wasn't implemented yet, I'd look for details in the project roadmap
concepts: Maybe more complex computer scienece stuff, how it works vs tcp/ip and where it all fits into layers. But that could also go to overview.
how-tos: the basic use cases you guys see right now, and how to do them. how do you use it in a wallet, how do you use it in a media type site, how to use it in a general store that isn't even crypto related. But i wouldn't expect my friend who just has a shopify site to go here
API: sometimes i just go to api first to see "ok how does this work what does this actually do". If i'm on a website and they just have an api i don't want to waste my time. i go there to see how good is it, do i have to pay for it, etc. Maybe the how-tos would explain how to interact with the API.
cli commands at top level makes sense.
project & roadmap: he hesitates. at the veyr least, roadmap to 2022, the next two years. no one actually has a roadmap to 2030. Two years is 10 years in this space.

**Say you're new to ipfs, where do you go first?**
As who I am, I might open up the API first. (opens it) oh, right, there are the different implementations. I don't know go yet but because of all the go stuff i've seen i think maybe i should learn it. I know javascript. (what do you think of the js-ipfs topics?) What's the difference between API dictionary and core API dictionary? I don't want it to seem like two separate APIs. A summary is good but to be very apparent that one is a summary of the other. (what's your preferred way of looking through API commands?) Sometimes there are some taht are super basic rest api's, that's fine, I just plug in the URL and it works. Other times I've seen it where the command is in a separate box and makes it really obvious (like a sandbox or a command line thing, sort of like swagger)

### Demo: no content yet page

First I'd look at GitHub to see activity. Even if I didn't understand it I'd try to pull it apart and see how much progress was being made on the thing and whether I could learn anything from what existed on GitHub so far.

I'd watch the video for sure. (didn't realize it was "Related" content). Then I'd click ont hings and read whatever was shorter. I want tl know time to read for every single website ever.

Personally I don't use chatbots that often, don't know if I have an aversion.

If I see "take this survey" I won't do it unless I'm incentivized to do it. But if it's super simple like just click this button, I might be more willing to do so. (this particular button) if it was just there at the bottom like that i probably wouldn't. I'm not sure if how if I clicked the button if it would actually have an effect. After all cause and effect even at a level of democracy ... that's why I'm working in this space after all. I want to make sure that I'm able to get the attention of someone on the other side, to know that I'm contacting a real person and doing it in a way that's actually doable for them. I mean, I know projects want user feedback. If i knew it would make a difference or result in a short exchange, I'd do. If I knew the name of the real person it would contact, that would be helpful. don't send your feedback to the CEO, they won't fix it.

Even if you're not invested at all you still feel like you're part of it, part of the future. I see this stuff as taking the place of key components of the web

## J

### Tell us about your familiarity with IPFS so far.

I found IPFS a few years ago because someone had put documents from my orgnaization on the ipfs and people assumed it was just google. I'm an archivist for the (nonprofit org), we have our books translated into almost 30 languages right now, we have a huge body of work that's not even all out in english yet a little under half has gone out our goal is to get it all over the world and amke it permanent. This is the permanent internet and this is designed for us. At the time, a few years ago we were looking at version control and we weren't even on Git yet and they ended up going with dropbox and word and the owner of the nonnprofit is very old school and he didn't want to change. we are nwo using git but the little bit i know about this and it's getting me very interested.

I was in the military and i did cbt and are and others when they were weaning themselvs off of these bit expensive hardware trainers in the 80s and 90s. Mostly in the 80s when there were touchscreens and such started up. Then I got out moved to (state) became a technical writer was in between moved to co 10 years ago and just jack of all trades. Mainly my future will be mainly archiving and also having a technical background they often use me a lot. I'm also really interested in research and finding systems to meet our goals and to get this material permanently out and no governbment really have the ability to pull the plug.

### Tell us about your familiarity with dweb so far.

### Do you use this stuff in your ordinary life? Your working life?

### What are your main goals for using/learning how to use dweb technologies?

### Tell me how you learn about new languages/tech/etc? How did (if appropriate) you learn to use IPFS?

### Demo: Personas

We have people all over the world. we are part religion and we're part environmental. For a lot of our followers, they have to be very secretive. whether they're just being a student, just reading our material there are places where our books aren't allowed. we've been able to get our books published in many countries but in some places like cina we can't even try. we're looking for permancency and even going so far to assume the internet won't exist.
#### Archivist
Permanence is definitely on top of the list but one of the questions I had about ipfs with my limited understanding when you put things on the internet people can change things. We understand we can't prevent that but we want to stamp our version as the authentic original version and make that identifiable somehow. this work will be around for centuries, our toal is to make it permanent. we don't want people to confused if they find an altered copy. we want it to be clear that it's ours.

We are in the process of publishing a huge body of work and we are not in the final version yet. if we need to change it we normally delete the old versions but it may be embedded in stone and we can't change it. (we talk about pinning)

We want every human who wants this thing to have access to that thing, but we want to make sure we know it's not altered. we want to ensure we are the authoritative source.

Our material is pretty challenging and revolutionary so we are early adopters ourselves in the content ourselves, but not technologically.

From our perspective we're definitely thought leaders all the way to the right. Once people find the materials and it resonates they become followers, but when they first find the material they are definitely acting as thought leaders.

Our message is urgent. Humanity is in torouble and we need something. we nee dmore than what we have now; we're divided, we're emerging into an evolutionary time so this material speaks to that at this turning point. Right at this critical moment.

#### Data Integrity specialist
A lot of these concerns are the same. Obviously not permanence. Hacks and breaches are a concern but more from a data tampering perspective. We want to maintain control of our authoritative copies of files, understanding that others may copy and alter them. Right now we don't even put our source on the cloud, that's how carevul we are.

## N

Product manager in (city)
Just started a custom software dev company trying to work on two applications

### Tell us about your familiarity with IPFS so far.

I got interested in blockchain mostly. Did some readings and met Dan, went to a meetup and a seminar here. I don't know much about it but am interested to learn and can continue to guess

### Tell us about your familiarity with dweb so far.

I only know IPFS.

### Do you use this stuff in your ordinary life? Your working life?

(see above notes about his main line of work)

### What are your main goals for using/learning how to use dweb technologies?

### Tell me how you learn about new languages/tech/etc? How did (if appropriate) you learn to use IPFS?

### Demo: IA nav

#### first pass
Overview: I'd like to see what problems ipfs can solve for me, how it can relate to blockchain, etc.
Install: I'd expect some sort of an SDK to be available there

#### clicking down
I'd be most interested in the overview first. I don't know anything about IPFS, so this would be the most important to me. The quickest way to introduce a new concept to people is video. You need an infograph with moving arrows in order for people to understand things. Even if you had articles, they should be short because no one has patience to read.

Every item needs to convince me why I should care. Otherwise it's just another idea and how many ideas do I have time to care about?

The concepts items aren't useful unless I am given a reason for why I should care.

Integration with the existing web is a good point, because I need to know how to work with what exists.

But none of these things in the concepts menu help me with big thinking or why I should care.

"Usage ideas and examples" could potentially include some "why" information, so those might be useful.

How-tos can be helpful now that I am convinced. "Install IPFS" should be in here.

#### Looks at the "ipfs can help here and now" reasons why on ipfs.io

These are better! These help me understand why. More detail would be nice.

If you're the first of this sort of thing, you should be more arrogant about it! This is a big deal. Give it an identity. Amazon sold itself in the early days as "the everything store".

(JS: Maybe we need a single-sentence statement? IPFS is secure, distributed storage that replaces the World Wide Web with a peer-to-peer architecture that's disaster-resilient, censorship-resistant, etc etc.)

#### "No content here" page

Discussion didn't go far on this topic; moved on

#### Personae: he's looking through the persona document

The privacy-aware communicator is very good. These goals are helping me figure out how to solve a problem.

Wait, if I put something on the internet isn't it there already? (We discuss climate change materials being removed by the US government.)

Blockchain by itself gives us the opportunity to determine the ownership of a digital asset and its history. But it's harder to understand who actually touched it and when.

## E

### Tell us about your familiarity with IPFS so far.

I've actually been folowing it for at least two years, very passionat about decent storage specifically. Been a developer for many years wanted to do something more meaningful than just working in the corporate space. I'm passionate just about tech in general. Ten years back, i had a burnout i was like it's just the grunt but it's cool to see now the crypto community with a lot of younger people be enthusiastic about what tech can do to fix things in society and democracy and ecentralize things like finance and stuff like that. i'm def intereste in blockchain and things like that mainly in decentralized identity and storage. I've lookedinto it a little bit but haven't gone too deep because i haven't had a project to work with it yet. I'm also a meetup organizer and am well connected with the community and like meeting people who share similar concerns. i've also dug into the dat protocol a little bit and developed with that a little too and have compared the two and have been interested in the tech. If there's opporutnities to shifty my career ot something like that it'd be awesome. right now i'm doing more cloud architecuters sort of josb, i've bene a java programmer and have also done nodejs and a lot of other things.

### Tell us about your familiarity with dweb so far.

### Do you use this stuff in your ordinary life? Your working life?

### What are your main goals for using/learning how to use dweb technologies?

### Tell me how you learn about new languages/tech/etc? How did (if appropriate) you learn to use IPFS?

I did go to college and study comp sci. since then i'v e just excelled in the professional space and have worked with teams small and big and ive worked with big companies startups etc and so i thrivie in a synergistic space but i've also done a lot of learning in my own time. i've had periods of time where i wasn't employed and i never lost interest in comp sci. in the blocks of time when i wasn't working i just spent a lot of time in mow own basement learning about things i was inbterested in. Usually i want to accomplish something and i'm looking for a way to accomplish that. It's about piecing together a problem and having a comprehensive understanding. I can build a ui, i know all the things involved and i know how to talk to a database but there's more to computer science than that.

I'm into blockchain but so many people are interested just in stored value or tokenization. ipfs actually interests me more than filecoing but i think it's really important that they're decoupled and ipfs can exist without being too locked in with the filecoun. there are different ways to incentivize rather than just handing out a reward.

i try to get some running code first. if i can find something on github that's an example project i'll slurp it down and run it and look at the guts of it. i try to get my hands on the code early in the stage before i necessarily fully understand it. i understand by digging into the code. if i hit a roadblock, google helps and then i end up on stack overflow or something like that. Or i go to that project's docs

#### he talks about the Dat docs - "how Dat works"

It was nice to see that Dat hired a guy just to do this new style of documentation

### Demo: IA Workflowy

#### Unexpanded: what do you expect?

This looks familiar. this is your standard sequence of events for something like this.

Under "install IPFS": I'd expect how to get a node going. Probably means install a node or install IPFS desktop.

Overview: Probably the different parts that come into play. YOu might miention there's a filecoin thing that can incentivize this and that there are other nodes out there that you can connect to, and there's a thing called content addressing -- overview and concepts might run into each other though.

Collapsed: It looks really stragithforward and for someone new to it it looks very not intimidating. For someone like me I'll have something really specific in mind and I want to see if I can do it with IPFS.

#### What if you wanted to build a decentralized GitHub?

First I'd glance at the overview, just to see what chapters were in the book. I don't imagine that would be too advanced just glancing at the collapsed list. So I guess I'd look at the API docs. I'm a little more familiar with JS than with go so I'd look to see what it broke down to.

Then I'd go back to the overview and go back to versioning because that interests me and would help me build my github. I'm quite familiar with the concept of content addressing but it raises questions for me: how do I content address a version of something? I already have some familiarity with how Dat handles that. I'm also interested in streams: content addressing works great for something static but how do you deal with content addressing for a stream of data?

Then I might look through the how-tos you have to see if there was anything there that was relevant to me. (clicks to "develop apps on IPFS") ... it looks to me to be very high le vel which is what I typically expect.

#### what about other stuff other than just learning how to build a thing?

I'd want to know is it public data is it private data? How do you expect to discover your peers? If it's public and you're joining the big glob of peers but if there are groups or different security layers how do you deal with that and does it get too complex?

I don't care so much about roadmapping. I'll advocate a technology if I think it works and I think it fits the need for something.

#### Sandboxing API docs?

I don't care so much. Step 1 is installing and seeing how I can load it into an IDE and discover the workflow. different technologies have a different workflow. one i'm a big fan of is graphql. I'm a big fan of strongly typed code. like in javascript when you declare a variable you can assign it to almost anything and at runtime it just figures it out. but that limits you at development time. a strongly typed objecgt you can know whether it has attributes you can use and there's a lot of ide tooling you can level in a strongly typed environment. i like what typescript contributed to javascript in that sense.

#### What about the community section?

It's what I expected.
The hierarchy here isn't right. I'd expect a list of different groups rather than different formats. Why not instead of separating forums from meetups, I'd just list some community and how to get in touch with them. I don't want to drill down into two levels of depth. I don't care if it's a meetup or a forum I want to know it's a group.
I'd think your different concerns would be the buckets. Concerns would be "I'm a developer, I want to find other developer communities. I'm an enthusiast, I want to find other users."
I'm thinking of how Dat does it ... they have a weekly call and then they take notes and we post them on github.
I use slack when I have to or I'm part of an active group that lives on Slack. I don't go looking to join too many slack groups because there are so many out there. I avoid spreading myself too thin.