The Great Code Club
greatcodeclub.com
greatcodeclub.com
So I'm curious... is there any kind of "open-source incubator" out there? Like, a site with 500 developers signed up, they all vote on new project ideas, start a new project each month, kind of like a great big collaborative hackathon, in order to put out some really impressive piece of software, that then hopefully lives on?
E.g., an open-source iTunes integrated with bittorrent, complete with iPhone app. A font-design program for amateurs. A keyframed animation tool that outputs to HTML5 canvas. A dynamic texture generator program. A user-friendly neural net trainer. A new lossy image compression format and encoder/decoder designed for resolution independence instead of a fixed pixel grid. I don't know, just cool projects that get people really excited.
I mean, the logistics of organizing such a thing would be a little crazy, since not every type of project is amenable to a large number of developers working in parallel, and you'd need a kind of domain expert and lead architect on each one. But it would be so, so cool...
There was something posted on here a while back called AssemblyMade. They basically do crowd-sourced development. To my knowledge, ideas are voted on, and then people essentially work in a democratic environment iterating on the development. In the end, the idea is that any profits made from the project will be split.
disclosure: one of the founders of Assembly
It doesn't seem wildly successful, but it's a nice effort, and I heard about it via a computer science student who found it interesting to participate in.
Although I would probably not pay money for either.
sorry for bluntness, haven't had enough coffee or sleep.
It worked a little too well, all of us got new and better jobs, and we're no longer close enough geographically to continue at the same rate as before.
The perils of success!
If you're in the bay area, ping me and I'll invite you out to our SF tribe in the mission.
- Screencasts presenting the project, giving the basics and showing solutions.
- Code to get started, full projects and examples.
- A community for help and support.
- I'll also be there supporting and answering questions. I've been teaching other devs online for a few years: http://classes.codedinc.com/
Code to get started doesn't make a lot of sense to me, if my goal is to complete projects! :)
Don't get me wrong, I am all for monetizing, but I greedily want something if I am going to pay for it.
[1] https://github.com/explore
[2] http://www.rent-acoder.com/
[3] http://devblog.avdi.org/2013/06/21/a-list-of-programming-scr...
EDIT: formatting
Maybe you can give us some examples.
This is not 100% decided atm, but the first project will probably be to implement a HTML5 Canvas game. I'll show how to implement a game loop in JS, but also in other languages. Then, drawing on an HTML canvas or something else is very much alike.
Another project I have in mind is to implement a small compiler/transpiler. Re-implement some UNIX utilities. Perhaps a web framework too...
But I want this to be guided by the community. I'm thinking of having a voting system to let members decided what will be the next project.
Hope this answers your question.
Falling into the latter group, I don't see any reason to pay $30/mo for an online community which already takes my time.
I will be producing screencasts, articles and supporting ppl in the club. I think there's a value to this. Teaching other developers online is what I do for a living.
Everyone will be working the same project, for eg. a game. I will present the basics of creating a game, give code to get started, etc.
Think of it as a RailsCast/PeepCode but centered around a community.
It's not because of the language itself. It's because it's implied that the platform my_great_project would be built on is "Chrome, the new C runtime". This is the "platform of the future" and that makes me kinda sad.
EDIT: clarified
Doesn't make 'em any good, though.
However, if it really bugs you that much, why not create a Great C Club? The necessity of a good community web site to power it notwithstanding.
There's more to goodness than technical aesthetics -- ubiquity is important and arguably harder to achieve.
That's why I chose to use it as an example and will also use it to present projects in the club.
For example, one project will be to code an HTML5 game, but you can choose to implement it in C or Java. You'll need to be able to understand JavaScript/HTML to learn from the screencasts that will present the project since I will be using JS and HTML5 canvas.
That's just an example, another project idea I have atm is implementing language or compiler.
Is it a club or a school?
But you swerve into this sort-of class format so we can "build our resumes" to be like Twitter employees, and you're looking for $30/mo for it? This seems like less collaborative community, and more a carefully branded training course from http://classes.codedinc.com/.
But to get there we have to start somewhere. And I know people can bond and form a community better if they work on similar problems, thus the projects.
In any case, I've jot it down on my "follow up" list for when I have some more free time. Good luck!
If it was set at $20... would $10/$15 have felt right?
(I teach software engineering for a living.)
We havent started development on my main project at work and I am itching to use my new skills. Recently I have been looking for something to collaborate on with more experienced devs but havent found an outlet. This looks like something I was looking for.
And if you're gonna blur an image, blur the image. :)
In your comments here, you mention the importance of your instruction and teaching, which I think is great. Perhaps make that clearer on the website?
Looks like a good idea to me.
This could really benefit from a trial period, or maybe a demo project. A demo project would be neat; have it offer everything the other monthly projects will so people know exactly what they are getting into.
Also, I use Ghostery and it blocks Google Analytics which seems to consequently block the click-through on your Apply button.
I'm willing to commit $30/mo to become a better developer.
There will be a monthly fee to join. I'll try to make it clearer on the page, sorry about that. This is my business, I make a living teaching developers online.
Yes, I will limit the size of the community. The goal is to get a core group of very passionate people first.