[Discuss-gnustep] RE: GNUstep Environment - the core

[Jesse Kaufman]

On 14 Sep, Nicola Pero wrote:

> I tend to think that the best marketing we can do is the one targeted to
> developers.  This fires the non-linear (exponential somtimes :-) expansion
> which makes a project succesful.  Targeting users is in a certain sense 
> because developers will not come if they do not know they can have users.

I agree!  Even though I am not a developer (yet!), I think it would be
best to first recruit more developers to either help w/ the core stuff
or start / aid development on the more user-based apps, such as
Terminal.app, Mail.app, FileViewer (since someone earlier mentioned
this app to seem to need a lot of development), and any of the other
apps that would be mentioned in the "long TODO list"

> Having a TODO list is very important because people coming from the
> outside would ask - what interesting things can I do here ? - or - is
> there possibility for me to get involved in this project ? - or - how can
> I help this project ?  If the only TODO list we have is the one about
> improvements of the core libraries, it's clearly attracting only very few
> people, since the `activation energy' is too high (==to difficult to start
> contributing), and the return in satisfaction does not seem so much.  If
> we had a TODO list with applications and little tools, I think it would be
> a nice attraction for people to contribute.  A little application is much
> easier to start, you have to learn much less, and gives you much more
> visibility, fame and satisfaction. 

plus, this would also give more of a "timeline" in development of
apps...  ie: start the list with the more basic apps (Edit.app,
Terminal.app, etc), and work up to more complex ones (the sky is the
limit!)

> If they want to `fork' a dead app by starting a new project derived 
> from the old one, that's in my opinion good too.

agreed, as there seems (from my perspective as someone who follows this
list closely, but has his hands tied due to lack of programming
knowledge) that there are all too many apps that have gone this
direction...

> And treat these people as they are - contributors - as you are, as I am. 
> They are not newbies.  Today it might be the first time they code in
> Objective-C - this does not make them newbies anyway - and tomorrow it
> will be the second time, and the day after they will probably know more
> about Objective-C than we do.

amen!  this is often frustrating for me when i contribute some
miniscule (sp?) bit of graphics to a project, then not ever have my
name even placed anywhere near it, giving me credit...

speaking of this great TODO list, is there something that i (a
non-programmer, web-developer, and somewhat of a graphics artist) can
help with?  I've wanted to try to contribute to the GNUstep project for
quite some time, but just have never found my "niche" w/ where to fit
in...  until somewhat recently, it seemed too much "in-development" for
me to even try, since there's quite a few e-mails about things i could
only dream of understanding!

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