Contributor spotlight: Lukas Spiss
We continue our series of interviews with Mockoon's open-source contributors with Lukas Spiss, Back-end Engineer at OneFootball.
For an open-source project, the community plays a major role in building innovative products. No matter the form the contribution takes, feedback, code contribution, bug reports, or word of mouth, Mockoon wouldn't be what it has become without all of you. We started this series of interviews to put some more light on the contributors who spent time crafting features or fixing bugs for the benefit of all. Today, we are talking with Lukas Spiss, who shares his enthusiasm for contributing to and using Mockoon.
Can you introduce yourself and your background in software development, your passions or hobbies?
Heya, I’m Lukas (@spissable), a German-speaking Italian living in Portugal. I earn my bread and butter as a backend engineer at OneFootball, which, luckily is also one of my biggest passions. Aside from that, I love the beach, football (Juventus FC), music, and a good home-cooked meal.
When I contribute, it’s important for me to be committed to it and to push it all the way through, e.g. by being responsive if there is feedback.
How long have you been using Mockoon? Are there any particular contributions you've made that you'd like to emphasize or showcase?
Luckily Git doesn’t forget (unlike me), so looking at the commit history, my first commit came in by the end of 2019 and I definitely had been a user for a little while before that. It’s kinda cool to look back and remember that my first contribution was packaging the app for the Arch user repository (AUR), which was also my first time creating and publishing a package for the AUR. So, it was a cool learning experience.
💡 Mockoon's availability in the Arch Linux user repository was added in Mockoon v1.6.0. Time flies! Since then, Lukas has been ultra nice and responsive every time we mess something up during a release. Kudos 👏
What inspired you to contribute to a project like Mockoon and open-source in general?
I have always been fascinated by the open-source world and wanted to contribute, without really knowing where or what. In the end, the contributions came really naturally, simply by using the tools and feeling like something was missing or experiencing buggy behavior. And since Guillaume (Mockoon's founder) was super welcoming right from the beginning the desire to contribute just grew bigger 🙂
How do you balance your contributions with other commitments?
Balancing my contributions hasn’t really been an issue, despite them coming from my private time, because I haven’t really contributed all that much in volume. When I do something, it’s important for me to be committed to it and to push it all the way through, e.g. by being responsive if there is feedback, instead of just doing a lot of different things simultaneously and then becoming overwhelmed.
I’ve been able to learn a lot, connect with interesting people, and get the pure satisfaction of giving back a little something to the open-source community that provides us with so many amazing things.
What general advice would you give to someone interested in contributing to open-source projects?
From my own personal experience, I had the most success whenever things happened naturally compared to when I kinda tried to force something to happen. Simply keep your eyes open while doing whatever you do, sooner or later you’ll trip over one of those pesky bugs or find a missing feature that bothers you enough to fix/add it. Also, something underrated that I do way too little myself, is simply asking for help/guidance/ideas. Believe it or not, many people tend to be very helpful when you ask them nicely 🙂
Has your involvement with open source contributed to your growth as a developer or your career?
I remember one specific instance when a CTO from a startup reached out to me via email to discuss a potential job opportunity. They found my (tiny) contribution in a repository they were using, which put me on their radar. Other than that very specific instance, in general, I’ve been able to learn a lot, connect with interesting people, and get the pure satisfaction of giving back a little something to the open-source community that provides us with so many amazing things.
What makes Mockoon unique compared to other API mocking tools? Can you share some key features or functionalities that you find particularly useful?
The key differentiator back in the early days for me was the ease of use. I suggested Mockoon to colleagues to help them in certain workflows and they were always up and running in no time, without any hassle, which was exactly the kind of experience I wanted from a mocking tool. Otherwise, you just spend too much time mocking things instead of just building whatever you’re meant to build. And the real accomplishment is that under the surface, this simplicity doesn’t sacrifice more sophisticated features and customizations. My favorite addition since I’ve been using Mockoon though has definitely been the CLI!
Have you integrated Mockoon into any specific projects or workflows, and if so, how has it improved or streamlined those processes?
Being a pure backend developer, Mockoon helped me bridge the gap with my fellow front-end developers during feature development. Having a nice specification is great and all, but being able to quickly mock the new/changed endpoints has made connecting frontend and backend bits a breeze.
What are your favorite tools or resources for software development outside of Mockoon?
The Rust programming language has found a special place in my heart, we should definitely re-write the Mockoon CLI in Rust ;) I love many other open-source tools. Fish (shell), HTTPie (API client), Zola, and Hugo (both static site generators)… just to mention a few.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with the Mockoon community, a personal project or an interesting read?
I recently read an old paper, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet, for the first time and found it super interesting. I definitely recommend reading the actual paper, it’s not that long.
We thank Lukas for sharing his journey with us. We are grateful he chose to dedicate his time and talent to improving projects like Mockoon, making it an indispensable tool for developers worldwide.
More interviews are in the pipeline. Be sure not to miss any by subscribing to our newsletter or joining our Discord server. Happy mocking!