[Twisted-Python] (Summary) The problem with Twisted...

[Andrew Bennetts]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 10:15:01PM -0400, Peter Hansen wrote:
> jml at ids.org.au wrote:
> > 
> > 3. Coil.
> 
> 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...  

So, Donovan, what happened to the code you were going to post to the list
yesterday?  :) 

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!)

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.  At
the moment, the docs are still somewhat of a barrier to new developers, but
thankfully not the insurmountable hurdle they used to be :)

Basically, if I had a choice between spending time on improving docstrings
or writing manager-friendly prose, I'd choose to write docstrings.

Oh!  And don't forget, we have some *excellent* marketing material already:
the 1.0 Press Release, linked from the front page.

-Andrew.