Workshop Area

I was wandering through the Monastary, and I was wondering (don't switch the 2 verbs ;-) :

Why isn't there any kind of workshop area, where people could meet to discuss/develop mid-size projects. A place where people could call for participation on project they want to start/finish.

To be more precise it's all about giving a more 'Team centric' tool to work/learn/discuss on medium/large projects.

I think (IMHO) that the threads aren't practical to handling discussion on large piece of code over long period(It leads to a looooooooooooooong list of answer, it's sometimes hard to find the part of the code someone is talking about,it keeps a lot of noise...)

This workshop area should enabled groups of people to work on a common project for a long time period keeping only informations needed (members,schedule,code,notes...) and convenient way to chat about this topic (list oriented /msg) and a way to stay informed of any changes on the project (response/code modification/member join/etc notifications)

No I'm not talking about doing another sourceforge, but rather an Area where Newbies can practice Perl on Real project initiated by other (experienced?) monks.

Medium project (like new modules?) should always provide tasks for different level of skills.
I'm sure some of you have ideas of project that they don't code because they lack time or maybe some skill in one particular area; such workshop would enable you to start some project, lower the developpement time (giving sub-task to interested people) and solve some difficult problems (the Monks knowledge is without limit...)

Why do it here rather than at (lest's say) sourceforge ?

*	Because a Perl related project has no better place than the Monastary.
*	Because the most talented Perl programmer are here ;-)
*	Because it would be another great way to make the monks learn.
*	Because I think that if all the amazing Perl coder hanging around, work together, it could produce amazing things !
*	To give more work to wroom ! ;-)

Is there any monk here feeling like me, not skilled enough to start something alone but willing to do something ?

Btw if this workshop area interest enough monks, a way to share code would be very useful (CVS server ?)

Comment on Workshop Area

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Workshop Area by danger (Priest) on Feb 10, 2001 at 21:38 UTC
My 2 cents on this is that a workshop area might be good as a place to float project ideas and obtain suggestions -- if there is enough interest, decisions can be made about mailing lists, hosting the project, and what ever. Something like an RFC (request for comments) or CFP (call for participation) area for new projects. Now, I wouldn't necessarily want newest nodes flooded with various project's adminstrative discussions and chit-chat, so perhaps if some kind of thread subscription were available, then only the toplevel node for a new project would show up in new nodes, and after that only subscribers to the project node would be notified of further posts to that node (maybe a new subscribe nodelet that would automatically receive msg's about posts to any subscribed threads). At any rate, the value of the workshop area in this scheme would not be hosting projects and providing CVS and such things, but only to expose a new project idea to a large number of monks and open it up for discussion and interested parties. When and if it is ready it could then be moved to sourceforge or elsewhere. Now, one thing I really like in your post is the notion of the project manager(s) developing sets of task assignments with related skill levels (and possibly even some discussion and hints for the tasks that are judged to be at the beginner to intermediate levels). That seems a great way to encourage newcomers and help them get their feet wet and hands dirty gaining experience working on real projects.	[reply]
Re: Workshop Area by chromatic (Archbishop) on Feb 12, 2001 at 03:01 UTC
We used to have Quests in the past, where people could compete for fabulous prizes and or recognition. Maybe we could use something there for one-off programs, something that a competent programmer could put together in a couple of afternoons, if he or she just sat down to do it. (Hey, I know kudra and ailie don't get the credit they deserve.) Besides that, we had one project attempt to start here in the past. I don't even remember what it is, but that's not a promising sign. Maybe those of us involved in free software should just put up recruiting blurbs on our home nodes. There are always things available for new programmers with Jellybean. Especially now.	[reply]
Re: Workshop Area by Lexicon (Chaplain) on Feb 13, 2001 at 13:14 UTC
I'm not uber-familiar with sourceforge, but (so) I don't see why it would be inapropriate for this job. I think it would be cool to have a PerlMonks workshop, but it would make more sense to me to recruit here and manage at SourceForge. At the very least, I think it would be good to experiment with that before having vroom build the same thing here. (And what would the difference be anyway, besides the people involved?) It would probably end up like the Q&A section here, which isn't really very useful IMHO. It strikes me as going against Perls Laziness virtue...unless you think Sourceforge really isn't set up to do what you want. -Lexicon	[reply]
Re: Workshop Area by dash2 (Hermit) on Feb 12, 2001 at 19:15 UTC
I think this is a splendid idea. I don't know if the structure of perlmonks (i.e. Everything) is ideal for projects, but why not start it as a sister site? I find sourceforge rather large and oriented more towards C or C++. I'd love to contribute to the community, but can't quite find the place to do it. Dave	[reply]
Re: Workshop Area by Jamnet (Scribe) on Feb 12, 2001 at 15:06 UTC
It would be good to have Workshop Area, where we can participate in projects and learn new skills from senior monks. It will surely benefit new monks like me.	[reply]


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