[svlug] Wish there was a program that..

[Scott Hess]

Replicating someone else's work isn't that bad.  In fact, it can be better
to learn the ropes replicating other projects than creating a new one: you
can compare your mistakes to their mistakes; you can see where the hard
problems are going to be; and the expectations will be lower.

The problem isn't redundancy, since most individual projects suck to great
or lesser degrees.  The problem is that people do things backwards.  They
_start_ an open-source project, _then_ they start writing code.  The
better approach is to start writing code, get to the point where you've
actually accomplished something, _then_ make it into an open-source
project.  This is effectively how all successful open-source projects were
originally created.

So start writing code.

[BTW, development is HARD WORK.  It's important to find a problem that you
_really_ want to solve, to help motivate you through the down times.  Not
just some random problem some guy in Peoria thinks needs to be solved!]

Later,
scott



On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Tim wrote:
>      I've been wanting to get involved in the Free Software Movement for
> some time now.  I thought I'd start by writing a program on my own, so
> that I could go at my own pace while learning the GNU autotools, CVS,
> and other development tools.
> 
>      The thing is, every time I think of something I could write, I
> would find that a Free Software project already exists for it after
> doing an apt-cache, Freshmeat, SourceForge, or Google search.
> 
>      So I was thinking I could create a web site where people could
> post descriptions of programs that they wished there was a Free Software
> project for.  Then aimless aspiring developers like myself could browse
> those descriptions, find something interesting, possibly get in touch
> with the person who requested it, start a project, and post a link to
> their project's web site when they're ready for visitors.
> 
>      If a project that meets the description already exists, then people
> could post a link to that project, and the original poster could respond
> with wether or not that adequately meets their description.
> 
> Is this a good idea?  Bad idea?  Unnecessary?  Suggestions?
> Thanks.
> 
>    - Tim
> 
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