Sharing Stacks

[Richard Gaskin]

-hh wrote:

 >  Richard G. wrote:
 >> Among the many venues our community uses for sharing stack files are
 >> Dropbox, Github, the forum DB, and web sites.
 >> But all the while we have a stack-sharing resource built into the
 >> IDE, RevOnline.
 >
 > Also     http://livecodeshare.runrev.com/    (what a name!)
 > (links to the same stacks as revOnline)

As a mirror of RevOnline, I would consider that just a second view to 
the one repository, rather than a different repository.


 >> Why is that not used?
 >
 > It is used.

But is it used frequently enough to warrant the expense of maintenance 
by the core team?


 > If you mean that some people prefer dropBox: They could set a link
 > in revOnline (if they won't use revOnline directly).

That sort of multi-source aggregation may be a good option.


 > ** This not-using-revOnline applies also to you. **

Of course, which is why I asked.  I introduced the community's first 
common stack repository with the release of RevNet (now "LiveNet" with 
v8 forward) on Christmas Eve 2003.  The team liked the idea so much they 
made an expanded version with RevOnline the following year.

But today it seldom seems used.  I use LiveNet because it's conveniently 
automated for distribution of curated stacks. Other use Dropbox, the 
forum DB, etc.

Rather than try to force people to use one, I wonder if a more organic 
approach may be more useful, one that embraces what appears to be 
naturally diverse repo preferences.


 > So I can't understand that you are getting angry about a few dropBox
 > links here.

I've expressed no anger, nor seen it in others.  Did I miss some posts?

What I do see is a frequent desire for a single place to find resources.

The key here is that the place to find things need not be where the 
thing being found lives.

People do what people do. If we embrace what appears to be a naturally 
divergent range of preferences into perhaps some sort of aggregate 
collection of links, maybe we'd have the best of both options: one-stop 
shopping to find things, but allowing folks to continue using whatever 
repositories they already clearly prefer.

That would seem a useful approach, but there's a hitch:  personally I 
would not want to see the core team take time away from engine work to 
do it.

And it's worth noting that we've seen some aggregation efforts in the 
past, but each one was even more rarely used than RevOnline, and AFARIK 
none of them are maintained today.

So if we want a central place to find things, who among us is in a 
position to lead such a project?

I can help, but my schedule doesn't permit me to be the team lead.

It may be that the current situation is not all that bad.  This is just 
an exploratory question, to see if the desire for a centralized place to 
find LC resources is strong enough among the community that the 
community would undertake building and maintaining it, as the 
communities for other languages have done (CPAN, CRAN, etc.).


 > Even our livecode.org page (a lot of thanks to you for that)
 > ignores majestically the revOnline/livecodeshare collection
 > in the "community" tab ...

One of the challenges with volunteer work is that it's expensive, 
requiring that the time for it is paid for by other work.

The web lead for LC Ltd, Steven Crighton, has taken the first steps in 
allowing our nascent community web team to begin fleshing out the .org 
site.  But unfortunately both Jacque and myself have been preoccupied 
with things outside of our volunteer work, so movement is beginning but 
more slowly than we'd prefer.

But even at this relatively early phase, there's much we can do in terms 
of planning and prioritizing what we feel the .org site should be.

So to support that process I've created a new thread in the Community 
Projects section of the forums where we can discuss ideas for what we'd 
like to see at the Community site, and for assembling the resources to 
make them happen:

http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=27610

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com