[Haskell-cafe] Re: Howto start a bigger project

[Günther Schmidt]

Hi James,

it's still very very far away from even a single line of code. I'd need a  
medium to lay this out first and discuss the idea. I'd normaly use this  
list, but I think it's a bit too volatile a medium for that. Most of the  
time I'm unable to find the threads I was interested in ever again, or  
with a great deal of pain.

The *project* at this stage is academic / R & D in nature.

Günther


Am 17.11.2009, 00:58 Uhr, schrieb James Britt <james at neurogami.com>:

> 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
>