I've been pondering starting a devshed-like site for some time, but figured now would be a good time since devshed's content is getting away from the kind of things that I want to read about. It would be a site where the author of articles would write real-world applications in the giving language or topic and break it down step-by-step. I find that people learn better by being shown with a working application then when they're given random facts about a certain function and then given an example related to an end result that doesn't accomplish anything.
Topics covered would be perl (duh!), mod_perl, php, vb script (maybe, if people want to learn about it), the various database types such as mysql posgresql (and effective ways to use perl's tie-ed hashes with dbms). Server administration topic could also be tacked, in particular things that people often have problems setting up like dns, sendmail (pop mail), qmail and advanced apache settings (as well as anything else server related).
I'm very well versed in all of the above topics, but wouldn't mind help if anybody's interested.
The whole thing would be non-for-profit (at least as long as I can afford the bandwidth charges), so there wont be any pressure to have annoying popup banners or sponsors controlling what content gets posted. It would just be a great opportunity to give back to the community.
Just thought I'd get people's ideas on the topic before I went any further with it. Is there room for another 'developers' site? I personally am dissatisfied with most of the ones that exist today anyway.
Also, if you want to help, e-mail me (ledjon@ledjon.com) or say so in this thread (I/we also need graphics people, /me is not good very good with graphics). People that know me from the forums here know I'm not just some joe-blow with a newbie idea, I plan on following through with this if there is interest in it.
I find that people learn better by being shown with a working application then when they're given random facts about a certain function and then given an example related to an end result that doesn't accomplish anything.
I completely agree.
and I would be more than willing to join you.
Right now I want to get one site about PHP running. check http://www.phpkid.org currently my problem is the web space.
I am lookng for some host as i have knowledge to spare not money. :(
But still your site and my site can be affiliate ( !!!! so optimistic of me !! ) and do good for community. so consider me in your project.
Right now I am in hurry so I post back again tomorrow.
JD
That sounds like a good idea, one I might be interested in helping with. Just a quick question - couldn't you go to Devshed and improve their site instead of creating a whole new one? I don't know how open they are about these things, but it'd be good if this forum community could create something like you mentioned in Devshed (taking away bandwidth problems). Kind of expanding on the idea of writing articles for Devshed.
It might be worth emailing them with a proposition. It seems a shame to create a whole new project when Devshed seems half-way there (great forum, and a not-too-bad site lacking in content).
I agree - devshed is an excellent site which could be made even better by encouraging users to submit code.
Code galleries are not new, we all know about hotscripts and zend (well for php stuff anyway!)...
What would be excellent would be a place for people to submit their own code together with detailed instructions on the code itself, a tutorial generating site for developers, more-or-less. www.flashkit.com have a code repository similar to this for flash/actionscripting - a PHP based version would be top.
I would be willing to work on such a project (sourceforge?) if someone has a good project plan set out.
telex4 has a good point with devshed, but I've tried contacting them before about helping out or made suggestions with little or (most of the time) no replies. Thing about devshed is that they are not really a community oriented site. Sure they have forums and a comment system, but they aren't exactly known for actually listening to the community.
munkfish brings up a good idea. This could very easily be a sourceforge project, but sourceforge doesn't really allow the flexibility I'm looking for. I've work on several projects on sf, and they're quite restrictive on how you can access the site (ssh only). What if we wanted to show a mod_perl example? No way sf is going to let us actually run it on their servers. There's also no way to play with things like dns and Apache on sourceforge (of course this can, and should be done off-site and then just written up and posted on the site). A code gallery is an obvious feature of the site, but I was thinking of a totally involved community system -- more so then the current sites that have 'code galleries'.
Thanks for the suggestions so far, and feel free to keep making more!
Ah, I had a feeling you might get that reaction. Their site doesn't really scream out for submissions and help, it seems more like a flagship for the company that built it.
I'm going to ramble incoherently to reach my point here. I'm currently documenting the code I've written so far on a project I'm doing, and I'm trying to do more than add a few comments in the code. In fact I'm going out of my way to make the code readable, to explain any system I use that's unconventional or of my own creation, so that anybody who downloads the product can get stuck into the code without too much of a problem. I'm doing this because I've worked on other people's scripts before, and found their documentation woefully inadequate. I always end up spending hours following subroutine calls and package calls to find out how the "overall system" works, and what all the components in the system do. It's immensely frustrating.
A GREAT project to me is one that is so well documented that anybody can use it with ease, and any fairly competent hacker can come along, learn the system and modify it painlessly and effectively. Oh and it has to work well too :D That's why I'm going the extra half mile in documentation.
Now it'd be really good if there were a place with all sorts of "generic projects" (like a polling system, a task manager, etc.) that were fully coded ,fully documented and fully explained so somebody could come along, learn how the system works and go on to write their own system building on the experience.
You could also access other tidbits on topics like mod_perl and taint mode, showing how to convert scripts to mod_perl/taint mode/etc (and other topics in PHP and other languages of course).
You could also have articles similar to those we were discussing before - mastering regular expressions, using the ImageMagick modules, etc.
And then there would be the forum, which would welcome discussion on the rest of the site and other topics.
All with working examples.
Basically what DevShed *should* and *could* be. Sounds really great to me :D I'd be very interested in submitting work to it, coding HTML and doing some graphics, though I don't really have the time to get into perl/php programming for it I'm afraid. It could be a very good idea though.
Would it be a vessel for Free Software / Open Source Software / open standards btw? Cuz I think it'd be a shame if you covered and promoted topics based on proprietary software and other non-community topics.
I'll be willing to help to. I could submit simple Perl scripts that people seem to always ask about (especially getting info from a form). I could probably think of more things to add too, but I'm drawing a blank right now.
Sorry for the late reply here.
telex4; this would be one of those places where entire generic programs could be written and documented. That's the idea that I want to go for here. And yes, this would be a 'vessel' for Open source things in that it wont things like do reviews of commercial products like all the $1500+ zend products (which devshed did foolishly and poorly do)
Damn shame - I haven't had a lot of reason to read about the Zend tools, perhaps I'm not qualified/monetarily edified to do so... but from the jist of it these tools do sound like commercial abandon.
It seems out of place for devshed to promote such tools, given the OSS background the authors appear to come from.
Do you have any written plan at all for the venture you're proposing Jon? If so email me at ockham_razer@hotmail.com - I'd be eager to hear about it.
Not beyond what I've said here. I've started developing the php backend, but from a 'business' point of view, I don't have any plans set in stone. (and since its not a money-making site, I figure that's fine for right now)
BTW, if there is anybody out there that wants to do a design, that would be the most helpful right now. No name totally decided on yet though.
Hello,
Sorry for being so late in replying back,
Nice to know others view.
Though I would agree with munk and jonled here.
I too have tried to contact Devshed ppl regarding article submission but there was hardly any response.
Also, I guess lately Devshed is more driven by forums rather than the articles/code/technology discussion. [ thats my personal opinion ]
I feel that reason might be that they havent organized a team. Lucas is the only fellow I know who might be looking at admin of site.
Also, it was long after forum was running,They put up moderators.
I guess we can make a team out of some good ppl here,
including munk,hero, jeffct, rycamor, rod k, andaness, sepodi***** among others.
I think a good *active* team can make a huge difference.
So Jon, I am with you, I would like to join you,
let me know what you have started with and what we can do together.
JD
Well that's good to know. Once we settle on a name and a more proliferate plan for what we're going to do, we can put together a more defined team to run things.
Bah, how dare they move this do such a dead forum ;p
Hey man,
There is a redirect too in 'live' forum !! ;)
JD
Hey at least it wasn't mysteriously removed!
I'm glad it'll be promoting Open Source & Free Software solutions rather than commercial ones :)
I've been thinking about some HTML templates for the design, and they link very closely to what I call the "ethos" of the site, and it's intended audience. I'm not sure what people would prefer here in terms of how much technology and bandwidth is used. I personally would prefer a very simple functional and attractive design without unecessary javascript, without lots of images, and wit as few tables as possible (there's nothing more annoying that waiting for a page to load when the whole contents is in a table!). I personally would like a hackers' site, designed to carry the information rather than design skills. Something somewhere betwene DevShed's embellished site, and the W3 Consortium's (http://www.w3.org) homepage.
Perhaps it'd be useful to split this discussion into more than one thread if people do want to do the project (policy, web site, backend).
While I don't particularly want to get involved in building the site, I may pitch in should it really pull together, and offer suggestions/review betas as they appear.
One thing I can offer- web space for the initial development. I have a dedicated linux box on a very stable DSL connection that I host my personal sites from. You could have perl, mod_perl, PHP, mySQL (and postgreSQL) and any perl modules you wish, along with an unlimited (well, up to 10 gig) amount of space.
I'd expect that the site would be moved to a different, commercial host eventually. I can give virtual domains (dev.geekuprising.com) or you may host a FQDN, also.
It's an option. . .
I'd be more than willing to help with article submissions (as mentioned before in another thread)
cpan / imagemagick / cms / user management / html parsing /
ton's of things i could ramble on about. let me know what i can do to help.
Originally posted by jdk
I guess we can make a team out of some good ppl here,
including munk,hero, jeffct, rycamor, rod k, andaness, sepodi***** among others.
?Are those wildcards on my name? ;)
I'd be willing to help out with some contributions.
I agree the Devshed forums are great, and there is little contact between the actual developers of the site and us, though. That's a shame...
---John Holmes...
you know your nick is very long and as such I forgot the spelling,
see I have wrote sepodi**** instead of sepoda**** !!!
Wild cards of *nix comes in picture !!! :p
JD
sounds interesting...
i guess i could try to help by submitting codes with tutorials and stuff and give tips based on experience or whatever ;)
though I don't think i have time help on full site creation/design, but maybe additional stuff that can make the site better. Though only in php...
Any idea what scripting language the site would be mainly made with?