GitHub released an "Organizations" feature a couple months ago [1], and I was thinking we could start a MUSHclient Organization to group MUSHclient-related things, like plugins, libraries, and other stuff (including the source). It would basically be the one-stop shop for stable MUSHclient-related things. (I imagine development would still be done on your own fork, pulling in changes to the org repo when needed). Rails does this sort of thing too [2].
I didn't get a one stop shopping feel from that blog.
What I did get was like: Nick could upgrade to Organizations, Set permissions to enable me to Push/Pull a sub-repo (say, for InfoBox), and then I could maintain that directly on GitHub.
I don't think this would link to the random plugins that people write, but organize what is distributed in the core.
Are there enough people that actively write MC code to make this worth while (9 watchers, 4 forks...)? Does it happen frequently enough that an Organization makes things less painful than an e-mail to Nick saying "Hey, check out my fork and let me know what you think", or "I updated that module, here it is attached."?
Nick seems security conscious enough that he'd review all code submissions before redistributing them. I don't think he'd elect to allow us carte-blanche to update the MC source, or bloat the distro.
It seems like a nice feature, but I don't think it fits what we do ("we" meaning 'mainly Nick with occasional help from us').
If you're thinking that the Source code wouldn't be the 'root parent' of this organization, Git really is a programmer's tool. I think it's a bit outside the realm of what's reasonably expected for plugin authors to know.
Although, Nick has written numerous plugins in response to posts over the years, and it would be nice to browse them easily. Just from a curiosity standpoint...
I think you're thinking of Git submodules, which literally nest repositories, IIRC. This isn't that. Organizations work the same as any other user account, except that multiple users are members. The organization owns separate repos, just like any other user. Look at the Rails organization I linked to for an idea of what's going on here.
It's still a lot of overhead in maintenance and permissioning for a feature that 9 people kinda checked out, 4 people sorta took an interest in, and 1 other person has done any real work on...
A good book to read about programming and project management (written in the 60s no less!) is Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month".
"Developer time is not fungible." (great word) The overhead of managing and communicating with other team members impacts productivity. So adding more people to a late project only makes it later...
So, yea, the more Managing Nick does, the less Coding Nick does... I'm guessing he'd rather be coding.
Is this technology for technology's sake, or does this give us something that we don't currently have? "One Stop shopping" vs Nick managing new user creation and permissioning and educating submitters on the tool when the forum accomplishes this as well...
I'm just championing Nick here... To quote him from the other day: "Remember, all this is done for free." So I try to keep in mind that this is his hobby and not his job, and let him do what he wants and enjoys first and foremost. I believe Coding is his hobby, not project management :)
True. I think Nick would be the sole owner of the repository, unless and until he wants to bring someone into the "core team", so to speak. Beyond that, I figure he'd just fork "blessed" repositories (i.e. submitted plugins/libraries/etc that he decides to include in the org), and accept pull requests. Actual development would, I think, still occur on separate user accounts, too.
[EDIT] Anyways, it was just an idea. I thought I'd mention it in case it was a good one.