Good afternoon everyone, Yesterday you will have seen that FixMyStreet had a major design relaunch: but this is only part of the news around FixMyStreet.
Over the last year the FixMyStreet codebase has been substantially re-written to make it easier to re-use, more generic and more approachable for new hackers. This is a work in progresss, but I am writing today to point out some highlights, and to invite people to get involved. Why build the FixMyStreet Platform? =========================== We have been spending mySociety's time and money on making the FixMyStreet codebase more approachable and re-usable because we want more people around the world to benefit from FixMyStreet. In particular, it makes us sad when we see people try to code their own 'from scratch' versions of FixMyStreet and fail because it is much harder than it looks to get it right. All too often those copies don't work properly because people use up all their time just trying to get the basic version 1 working, and never get close to growing and iterating their sites as needed. We want to save those people time, pain and money, and make it much more likely they succeed in launching their own sites. In short, we want the FixMyStreet Platform to be an attractive, free, highly customisable package for people who want to run websites like FixMyStreet, anywhere. And we want it to work no matter how much the local government does or doesn't do, and regardless of what kind of technology users have access to. And, from a self-interested perspective, the more people there are hacking new features on the FixMyStreet Platform the more cool stuff we can get to add to the British FixMyStreet.com :) What's new ========= 1.) The code has a new name: the FixMyStreet Platform is what we're calling the codebase as a way of differentiating it from the British website we know and love. 2.) We've set up a homepage for the FixMyStreet Platform, so it has some identity of its own: http://code.fixmystreet.com 3.) We've set up a new mailing list, for people who would like a friendly place to ask questions about the code, or to discuss new ideas and patches that they've written. Sign up at http://bit.ly/w629CP and say 'hi'. 4.) The installation instructions have been given a going over: https://github.com/mysociety/fixmystreet/blob/master/notes/INSTALL.pod 5.) We've just published a non-technical guide on why the FixMyStreet Platform is a good choice for people wanting to run sites http://bit.ly/yyBSu6 6.) We've set up a new blog about all our varying attempts to make mySociety's code easier to re-use in other countries at http://DIY.mySociety.org 7.) There is now an IRC channel for people interested in the FixMyStreet Platform, #fixmystreet on irc.mysociety.org - if you join now you'll find people from Norway and Luxembourg, for example. 8.) There's a new DIY mySociety Twitter account for people mainly interested in mySociety's efforts making our code and leaning more accessible. As you'd expect, it is @DIYmySociety As I said above, this is very much still a work in progress. The FixMyStreet Platform is some considerable way off being a 'one click install', and there will always be limits to how much we can do for users in new countries. But a ton of work has been done on making the whole thing more re-usable and approachable, and I hope that this energises some of you reading to give it a look. We'll be doing a lot more work on the FixMyStreet Platform this year, and the more people who are involved with using the code, the easier it will be for us to understand what we should be working on. all the best, Tom Steinberg _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
