Andrew Bennetts wrote:
On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 10:15:01PM -0400, Peter Hansen wrote:
I have only one thing to say in this area, which is please don't anyone think about developing this just because you think you need to in order to help convince someone to use Twisted. If you don't need it enough to do it for yourself or for someone who has specific documented needs (a.k.a. "user stories") you will not produce something useful to anyone and you'll waste your time to boot.
I've seen the old coil, and heard discussion on what the new coil will do, and I'm sufficiently excited to believe it's *very* worthwhile...
Anyway, back to Peter's advice -- you have a point. But couldn't the same argument apply to making a manager-friendly web site? I'm somewhat inclined to simply keeping good code, and rely on the quality to eventually speak for itself, rather than expending effort on a perceived need to market Twisted to non-technical people. (Of course, if marketing Twisted is someone's itch, they should be welcome to scratch it!)
Very true on all points! Of course, marketing XP style should not involve a whole lot of upfront packaging and cosmetics, but should be driven by actual need. After all, real marketing, the heart of what the very word is supposed to mean as opposed to how its misused and abused by all the glossy brochure types in the word, is _understanding customer needs and developing products which fulfill them_. So if marketing Twisted is someone's itch, and they want to be most effective, they should, IMHO, go step by step XP style and try to understand what the world needs in one particular area of Twisted (say, coil) based on real-world information: ask around, write proposals and respond to feedback, and most important of all: develop prototypes (quick and somewhat dirty) to elicit direct feedback on what will actually work. Basically, in my mind, there is no reason to distinguish between marketing and "traditional" XP development, as both should look the same if one is doing them most effectively. Of course, if by "marketing Twisted" you meant someone actually wants to do the glossy brochure thing on the product, like souping up the web site and writing intros for managers, I'm not sure I have much advice except I don't think it's such a good idea. :-)
On the other hand, I think more and better docs for developers (i.e. the APIs and "HOWTO"s, which are misnamed I think) is definitely worthwhile. The more developers we can attract, the better tested our designs and implementation will be, and the better quality our project will become.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. YES! That goes back to my original "what kind of manager are you targeting" question. The best kind to attract is the kind who will already be attracted by your approach, and by the quality of the product you are delivering. Those things speak for themselves and don't need the glossy brochure kind of "marketing", which is really about selling inferior products to unsophisticated customers. (Again, though, if that's what you want to spend your time doing, I guess nobody should be trying to stop you. ;-) (Somewhat rambling, but it's very early in the morning and I didn't get enough sleep... forgive me.) -Peter