On 8/21/14 12:12 AM, Robert Nyman wrote: >> Background: I saw a developer who started an app from forking Robert's >> Firefox OS boilerplate. Which is fine, but by now has also largely been >> superseded by other efforts, such as webide+mortar templates and, coming >> up, recroom. > > I think, to me, they are complementing each other. To explain, the > reasoning and motivation behind the Boilerplate App is to avoid any > dependencies whatsoever but for what's available for Open Web Apps/with > WebAPIs. No 3rd party libraries or frameworks needed, and you can just > copy-paste the parts you need for your app. > > As feedback showed to tofumatt's great article and Rec Room, some love > it and think it's fantastic, while others believe it has become way too > complicated. And with the difficulties getting traction for Firefox > OS/Open Web Apps, I believe it's important that we have simpler options > too, not too scare developers away.
You're right on the money. These are different target audiences. You have beginners who shouldn't be overwhelmed with too much complexity -- those are served by current and upcoming "mortar" templates, for instance. And you have experts who don't need help with all their choices anymore. And in between you have a large group of advanced devs that recognize the need for code organization, for templates and tests, but don't have the time or expertise to do extensive research of their own. That's the target audience for recroom. I wrote about it here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8193641> >> I suggest: >> - a "NOTE:" of some sort on top of old "this is how you make an app" >> articles on Hacks, pointing to the MDN App Center >> - a similar note on older repositories on github >> >> In fact, we could probably add this kind of pointer to up-to-date repos >> and posts as well, in case someone finds their way there by way of >> Google. > > Absolutely! On Hacks we don't get that much traffic to older article > about Apps, but I think this would be really good nonetheless and also > give good linking to MDN. > > I'm also looking into getting more engagement on Hacks, both through > lowering the bounce rate but also driving traffic to other Mozilla > properties (MDN being the biggest one). The blog has good attention for > single blog posts but I'd like to create a interest in other things we > offer as well beyond the current article they're reading. > > If you let me know which articles should point to MDN, I'd be more than > happy to add it! > > I also added a sentence about it in the README for the Boilerplate > App: https://github.com/robnyman/Firefox-OS-Boilerplate-App Thanks! I'll see if I can identify a few posts that should have a hint/link and we'll go from there! Fred _______________________________________________ dev-webapps mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-webapps
