This visualization shows the activity of 176 committers and the 1000 updates that went into Play 2.4

Admittedly, I'm fairly new to the Typesafe team and our Reactive Platform, but I've been involved in the Java world since 2010 and I've learned a thing or two about communities. The thousands of people helping make Play Framework, Akka, Spark and Scala possible are, to me, bacon-wrapped unicorns in their own right. As my prime example, I often point to the growth and enthusiasm of the global Java User Group (JUG) Community. There are few who would doubt the power, influence and inspiration of JUG communities, and I'd love to see global Scala User Groups follow their path in size and availability some day too.

But even as I consider the special, inimitable nature of software communities, I do enjoy getting surprised by the creativity of these talented, quirky geeks in the community. Today, I saw that Play Contributor Marcos Pereira, a self-described "Software Liar, Agile Drunker, Scrum Monster, Passionate Product Legendary, Curious Human Being, and Certified Unsatisfied Person" used Google Gource to create this fabulous 7-minute visualization (above) of the development of the latest Play 2.4 release, complete with a soundtrack by Funkwerk. Well, it really blew my socks off–and back on again.

To be fair, Play Framework is supported by one of the most active software communities I've ever seen. Here are some stats taken today from the Play repo on Github:

6421 stars

6394 commits

2265 forks

429 contributors

87 releases

And this is just for Play 2.x. There is a Play 1.x repo with a decent amount of activity as well. It's just exciting to be involved with this awesome group of super-devs that make Play, Akka, Spark and Scala so vibrantly active and influential in the JVM world.

So, thanks for this awesome recording, Marcos, and thanks to the 176 people that made over 1000 updates in Play 2.4! It wouldn't be possible without you.

Feeling experimental?

TRY PLAY 2.4 IN TYPESAFE ACTIVATOR

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