blahah
commented
6 years ago @aschrijver the energy and thought that you have put into all of your recent discussion contributions is astounding, so thank you first of all.
I want to manage expectations by highlighting that the projects in these issues are all in similar situations I think - relatively slow but steady community growth, but with a solid theoretical foundation. None of these projects (afaik - I don't speak for them except ScienceFair) have a lot of resources to dedicate to discussion in issues right now.
We definitely appreciate the thought and care, but please don't be offended if people take a long time to respond, or if issues are closed for now to avoid attracting long discussions while the project team don't have time to give them the attention they deserve. With low resources and a technical point to prove, I think most energy is usefully spent in development. That doesn't detract from the importance of the issues you highlight, it just means that it might take a little while for us to match your energy :).
For ScienceFair, I can say that we have thought about a lot of the issues raised but that documenting our ideas has come second to establishing whether they are viable. As soon as the resources we can attract prove the latter, the former will become the priority. I would urge you to hold off on opening any more issues while we have time to digest these things along with the other (invisible on github) things we have going on.
And finally to reiterate, the care you have put into this all is very much appreciated. Thank you :)
aschrijver
(NOTE: This issue has been moved from https://github.com/datproject/dat/issues/824)
As a newcomer to Dat and the field of Decentralized Computing I decided to provide my observations, advice and recommendations. I've always found outsider feedback to be refreshing, thus I hope mine is as well.
I've split the original discussion into separate parts:
Explains how Dat can easily reposition as a message-based application platform, and broaden its applicability, strengthen its community and obtain more and easier funding
A swot analysis of the dat community culture and the development approach that results from it
Existing awesome list is outdated. A complete overhaul would give a better dat ecosystem overview
Dat ecosystem is confusing to newcomers. Existing dat module repo's provided by dat project are scattered. Github project organization can be easily improved for more clarity and consistency
Dat project overall development status, planning and roadmaps are obscure. Providing a simple, high-level means of project tracking will greatly help to engage and involve the community
Current documentation procedure is inefficient and error-prone, leading to outdated or incorrect documentation. Automation can alleviate most of the current downsides.
Messaging proposal
More details on the technical side, explaining how Dat current design concepts and a proposal for moving towards messaging. The proposal was accepted as useful by @mafintosh @joehand
Elaboration on the actual design of the abstraction layer, which takes the project Vert.x as an example
Evaluates whether to extend the protocol itself, or layer a message abstraction on top of hypercore
Addresses issues posed by @blahah and @joehand on maintaining stable, dedicated team, good quality output and at the same time avoid negative attention as the project gains more traction
More details on the vert.x project, which is both a showcase for good project organization and community building, as well as an interesting technology to incorporate with Dat
-- . Hope my input leads to fruitful discussion and overall benefit!
Arnold Schrijver