[development] Encouraging Collaboration

[Steven Peck]

Subject: Re: [development] Encouraging Collaboration

>>> IMHO Drupal is going through some growing pains - Dries pointed  this
>>> out
>>> in Amsterdam when he talked about the phenominal growth of the
>>> community.  There is a lot of work to be done.
>>
>>
>> Correct.  Bear in mind that there always have been growing pains, and
>> that there always will be growing pains.  It's perfectly normal. 
>> What matters is how we counter the growing pains.
>
>agreed. However as the speed of growth accelerates it will place new
>strains on the community - IMHO.

Not really.  It's the same strain it's been for the two years I've been playing.  This cycle has repeated several times during that time period as more people joined.  Each active participant we get brings subtle and dramatic changes to the project.  Sometimes the change is in doing the invisible stuff that paves the way for the dramatic visible later.  Few see the groundwork, just the result.  We probably need to do better writeups on the scale and scope of the work involved when any more new features get added/introduced to Drupal.org.  People who are not involved miss a sense of understanding at the work involved by all the contributors.
 
It seems if you can last about six months, then you tend to begin to understand the scale and scope of what is going on. :)

>> To answer your questions:
>>
>> 1. Download page: we are working on improving the download page.

> great is there a discussion about this somewhere?

I thought it was in the archives, I easily could be wrong, I know it's in writing somewhere.

>> 3. Who is this product for?  Drupal is for users who want to setup a
>> website _and_ for developers who need a platform.
>
>That's reasonable - but pretty ambitious.  There aren't many products
>out there that are developers tools as well as non-web developers
>tools.  As a matter of fact I can't think of any off hand at all.  This
>doesn't mean that Drupal can't do it - it just means that it is new
>territory (the fun kind).

How is this different that what we have now?  I am not a developer.  Two years ago I needed to setup a website and never left.  This was with no knowledge of php or MySQL and I was able with minimal assistence using the documentaiton in the forums and the install.txt to do so on an IIS server.  I undertstand MySQL a bit better now, php marginally (enough to play with phpTemplate but that's it).
 
Where we are making lots of progress every release is in making it even easier for the non developer.  There is documentation in the various snippets sections of the handbook that is improving bit by bit every month.

>> 4. How do things get done around here?  Either you do it yourself, or
>> you work on it with others.
>>
>> So we are working on the growing pains -- even though you might not
>> have noticed.
>
>no I actually have noticed - and everyone is doing a great job.  I did
>not mean to be negative nor critical - sorry if it came off that way.

You didn't to me, but the really weird thing is, that is absolutly is the way things get done here.  
The way you find this out is to be involved as you are now.   Track developement, say hi in #drupal sometimes.  
Submit patches, documentation, answer forums questions, etc.
 
So you've noticed.  What have you noticed?  I'm curious.  Perhaps it's something that can be mentioned in the newsletter because we've all forgotten or missed it because we were involved.
 
Don't forget, have fun too.
 
-sepeck

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