[Haskell-cafe] Howto start a bigger project

[James Britt]

Günther Schmidt wrote:
 > Hi all,
 >
 > I'm stuck with a problem where I need serious help from other
 > haskellers, in particular those that participate here on this list. It's
 > a rather big project and I will need to set it up in an organized way,
 > something with a blog, web page or other means.
 >
 > I tried to solve it by myself while asking the occasional question here
 > but that turned out to be ineefective. The problem as such is certainly
 > of interest for just about any programmer who is using Haskell for real
 > world programming too.
 >
 > In short, to get started I'd appreciate some tips how to set this up.

Create a project on github.com.  It makes it dead easy for people to try 
out code and submit patches.

Do enough work so that the code is useful, even if the implementation is 
crap.

In fact, a crappy implementation may be a good thing; it makes it easier 
for people to find something to contribute.  And then they feel a part 
of the project.

Version 0.0.1 has to work right out of the box, be easy to install, be 
stupid obvious to use, and have non-zero value.  Promises mean nothing.

So, in practice, you need to start a really small project that could 
maybe become big but doesn't have to in order to be valuable right now.

I've ended up as a committer on more than a few projects because the 
code  solved a real problem in a simple and good enough way that I did 
not feel the need to go roll my own.  And when I encountered a bug or 
wanted a feature, it was easy to contribute.

But, key to all this, is getting people to feel they have a vested 
interest in the project succeeding, and that can be tricky.


James

-- 

Neurogami - Smart application development

http://www.neurogami.com

james at neurogami.com