Hi all,

I am currently working on my branch 'skeleton' which you can preview
here: https://git.gnu.io/chreekat/snowdrift/merge_requests/1

The purpose of this branch is to provide the skeleton of the launch
effort for this 'alpha' sprint. (And it is an alpha sprint, although
sometimes the word 'beta' is being used.) To describe both of those
things, let me first link to the document listing the pages being
worked on: https://v.etherpad.org/p/snowdrift

The goal is to have a complete website with a working prototype.
"Complete website" means it has some important pieces like
terms-of-use and team pages. "Working prototype" means a variety of
pages that users can use to view projects and view statistics about
their patronage of those projects. The statistics must work, and users
must be able to make and modify pledges.

Over the years, Snowdrift has blossomed into a huge, variable project.
In order to focus on a sprint, we had to decide what pages we actually
need to work on. This is what "breaking down the goal" looks like. The
etherpad document is the embodiment of that work.

So now we have those pages to work on. "But wait," you say, "weren't
there already a lot of existing mechanism pages?"

Yes and no. Yes, there are pages that will be used in the alpha sprint
with minimal changes. No, there was never a clear goal for the funding
experience. This isn't just about surveying "what's missing" and
filling in the gaps, it is about making the whole enterprise possible
by backfilling purpose and direction.

Besides the alpha sprint, which is about functionality, we also have a
new design framework. While it's probably a bad idea to launch both
efforts at the same time, I think it will not kill us. There's enough
overlap that it may even be the most efficient strategy. At any rate,
it's what's happening.

We had to make some decisions about how to proceed with both efforts
without creating an impassable clusterf**k. Here is what we are doing:

1. All alpha pages will use the new design.
2. All alpha pages will be developed agile-style, with frequent
   updates to the production site.
3. The skeleton branch (the first link in this email) will instantiate
   all the pages we've thought of so far. They will be in very rough
   shape, but they'll have all the required links between each other,
   so one cannot get "lost" down a dead end.
4. Once the skeleton is in master, there will be opportunity for lots
   of parallel development on the individual pages.
5. Once the skeleton is in master, I myself will begin working on
   other critical infrastructure pieces, like a new test suite that
   will be the canonical source for describing requirements for the
   individual pages.

On a higher level, we still have ZERO specified requirements for the
pages on the etherpad doc. It is possible that some will come or go,
depending on whether or not they prove to have any value.

I feel like specifying requirements is so important. It's the next
step of breaking down the main goal. Please help, or suggest ways of
sharing the work. Maybe people would like to take ownership of
individual pages? That would make me pretty happy.

Now that I have wall-of-text'd you all, I'm gonna go work on the
skeleton some more. I'll be in the closet. You know, with the
skeleton.

-B

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

_______________________________________________
Dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/dev

Reply via email to