It's time to get started on some more work. I mentioned yesterday that I had an idea for something that might bring in a couple of more programmers. Apoligies in advance for stepping on anyones toes here, but I think we've been a bit too silent lately. And that isn't good in the long run...
The idea is this: Construct a proper dependency graph for OO.org, and then use this to construct an "enabling end-products" graph. I'm not sure what to call it, but I basically mean taking the dependecies we have in OO.org, and figuring out what other useful and/or cool pieces of software will be that much closer to a port if/when each dependency is taken care of. That way both we and people who come across some kind of source they want to port will know where to start.
I'm thinking of doing it as a graphical diagram as well as a relational database (because I do both of those things a lot already). That way you could search in the database for a piece of software to see what dependencies there are and if anyone is working on them, or search for a dependency and see how useful it is.
Does it sound useful? I think it would make it a lot easier for people like Captain Moo Moo and Joppe, who were both looking for projects to feed to students. Just putting all of them into the OO.org pool would be too much noise and not enough gain, but splitting them into teams to tackle smaller (but still important) parts of the project or even build other projects on top of our dependencies to extend the software base of the Amiga would be great.
So we need to concentrate more on those dependencies. I know Henning has spent a shitload of time on this already, I would actually like to know at this point who _is a programmer_ and _has some time this coming weekend_ (and if yes on both points, _when_). Yes, an IRC schedule. We won't be needing non-programmers, but an hour or two of nitty gritty code reviews and notes taken which can be built into a database would be a good place to start if we want to attract some more attention. For one, it would serve as a kind of "progress report" to the outside world.
I'll be sketching down the outline of a database tomorrow, if any programmers has some free time between friday evening and monday morning, european time, send me a PRIVATE EMAIL with the fixed world-clock time ( http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html )
like this: start: url-specifying-start-of-period stop: url-specifying-end-of-period
repeat for each period
If you have better ideas for scheduling practices, please make note of them IN ADDITION to following my wish. At least this once, we'll see if we use your ideas in the future, ok? :-)
And I repeat, we really only need people who can go over code/search elsewhere to look for obvious dependencies. I'm sure we won't find all dependecies (and their order/structure, which is just as important) just yet, but maybe we can start filling in something.
It would be awesome if someone could find a member of an existing oo.org porting project team and get some input there. That would actually help a lot.
Of course, if people choose to ignore my idea then that is perfectly acceptable, but I hope I'll then at least get a response indicating that the email has been read but the idea rejected. Even though it ended up as a rather long email in the end...