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Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...
From: |
Doug Simons |
Subject: |
Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things... |
Date: |
Thu, 12 Sep 2013 14:25:19 -0600 |
On Sep 12, 2013, at 11:52 AM, Doc O'Leary wrote:
> In article <mailman.1962.1379003464.10748.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
> Doug Simons <doug.simons@testplant.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sep 12, 2013, at 4:03 AM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>
>>> We could almost certainly provide them with an automated tool that they can
>>> run on their codebase that would give them a pretty clear idea of the OS X
>>> APIs that they use. Actually, providing such a tool with the ability to
>>> produce a report against the current version of GNUstep showing what is
>>> missing would be very helpful for a lot of projects.
>>
>> If such a tool could be produced, I think it would be a tremendous asset for
>> GNUstep. I suspect there are plenty of developers of applications for OS X
>> who would be interested in porting to GNUstep but are put off by the
>> daunting
>> task involved in making the effort, especially knowing that there are almost
>> certainly some things missing but not knowing how extensive those gaps might
>> be.
>
> I disagree. What you want to do is engage developers as much as
> possible with as little effort as possible. Don't give them a tool that
> has them holding GNUstep at arms length like a stinky diaper. Instead,
> you have to make the porting effort less daunting from the get-go. Or,
> rather, make the effort in line with the reward. Like Graham said, many
> developers won't be bothered with even zero effort mainly, I think,
> because they expect zero reward.
I think any Cocoa developer who discovers GNUstep and begins to consider using
it to port their app will immediately be asking questions like "Does it work?",
"How complete is it?", "Will it do what I need for my app?". They will likely
be highly skeptical about GNUstep and not believe that it will simply work as a
Cocoa replacement. Reading that GNUstep implements 80% of Cocoa (or whatever)
is almost completely useless information, and means that it will take them
considerable effort to even figure out whether it's worth looking at in more
depth. If there is a tool that can quickly give them a concrete indication of
approximately how much effort might be involved, I think it would go a long way
toward easing their entry into GNUstep. So I don't understand why you think
such a tool would have them looking at GNUstep like a stinky diaper. I think
they will see it that way right from the start, and the tool will help them get
past the stinkiness and move ahead with a clearer idea of the reality. But
that's just my opinion. :-)
I totally agree that making it all less daunting from the get-go is important.
Another critically important piece of that, IMHO, would be to simplify the
build process. Either make it as easy as possible to build a GNUstep app from
within Xcode, or if that's not feasible, make the build process for Cocoa apps
on Windows/Linux as close to one-click as possible. For me, at least, I would
want to start the process off with specific compile errors showing the parts of
my code that need work, rather than fighting with installing, configuring, and
setting up the environment for many hours.
Doug
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., (continued)
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Riccardo Mottola, 2013/09/12
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Robert Slover, 2013/09/12
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Doug Simons, 2013/09/12
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Austin Clow, 2013/09/12
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Dr . H . Nikolaus Schaller, 2013/09/12
- Message not available
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Doc O'Leary, 2013/09/12
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Muhammad Hussein Nasrollahpour, 2013/09/12
- Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Gregory Casamento, 2013/09/12
- Message not available
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Doc O'Leary, 2013/09/13
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...,
Doug Simons <=
- Message not available
- Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Doc O'Leary, 2013/09/13
Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Riccardo Mottola, 2013/09/12
Message not available
Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things..., Muhammad Hussein Nasrollahpour, 2013/09/12