Popularity (was Re: SLAYER announcement ...)

[Mike Gran]

> From: Thien-Thi Nguyen <address@hidden>

> As Guile-SDL maintainer, i wonder what i can do to attract the same
> audience, whether or not it is worth expending the energy to do so, in
> what ways have i failed to encourage organic additive (as opposed to
> parallel) hacking, and how wonderful/terrible it is for GNU to be so
> loosely coupled.

Working on a library or framework is always a thankless task, since
so few programmers want to use the unproven.  Gtk would not be where
it is if it weren't for the co-development of Gimp, an end-user
program.

Getting someone to try an end-user program is easier than getting
a programmer to try out a library.  But that is difficult as well.
Since every essential end-user program has been written -- all new
work just re-mixes the old ideas in either shinier or deeper ways --
few people are in "need" of new software.

But there is always space for new diversions: there still seems to
be a market for something short, easy to run, and entertaining.
The Flash or HTML5 games model, essentially.

One might consider writing an end-user program first,
and then note how it is built upon libraries that can
easily be reused.

(And speaking of libraries that will never be used... guile-ncurses
v1.4 dropped last week.  That'll never have any users because the
intersection in that Venn diagram is too small, consisting mostly of
me.  So, I write it for myself.  Maybe I should follow my own
advice above.)

-Mike