Re: Popularity (was Re: SLAYER announcement ...)

[Nala Ginrut <nalaginrut@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 2013-05-05 at 12:42 -0700, Mike Gran wrote:
> > From: Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org>
> 
> > As Guile-SDL maintainer, i wonder what i can do to attract the same
> > audience, whether or not it is worth expending the energy to do so, in
> > what ways have i failed to encourage organic additive (as opposed to
> > parallel) hacking, and how wonderful/terrible it is for GNU to be so
> > loosely coupled.
> 
> Working on a library or framework is always a thankless task, since
> so few programmers want to use the unproven.  Gtk would not be where
> it is if it weren't for the co-development of Gimp, an end-user
> program.
> 
> Getting someone to try an end-user program is easier than getting
> a programmer to try out a library.  But that is difficult as well.
> Since every essential end-user program has been written -- all new
> work just re-mixes the old ideas in either shinier or deeper ways --
> few people are in "need" of new software.
> 
> But there is always space for new diversions: there still seems to
> be a market for something short, easy to run, and entertaining.
> The Flash or HTML5 games model, essentially.
> 
> One might consider writing an end-user program first,
> and then note how it is built upon libraries that can
> easily be reused.
> 
> (And speaking of libraries that will never be used... guile-ncurses
> v1.4 dropped last week.  That'll never have any users because the
> intersection in that Venn diagram is too small, consisting mostly of
> me.  So, I write it for myself.  Maybe I should follow my own
> advice above.)
> 

No Mike, I use guile-ncurses for a little thing to peek stock
market. ;-P
And TTN, your work is nice.
We just don't have a web community yet, so many folks and projects are
unrevealed. 

> -Mike
>