hi, > Felix builds 'out of the box' on Unixen, OSX, Cygwin, MingW, > Win32 and Win64. Do you know ANY other system that can build > such a complex suite of software -- and test it -- on all > those platforms? I don't.
That is - honestly - an impressive list. But... I feel like there is a gap between what experienced Felixers perceive as what it can do vs. a newbie's experience walking in the door. I don't want to detract from what Felix is and does, tho honestly I haven't seen a lot of it yet, and I've gotten a kind of discombobulated experience trying to get it built and installed and running. > on the build system. Interscript took 3 years to write. > The interscript documentation builds on all platforms too, Interscript does look cool and I've kept a mental aside that when I win the lottery and have free time I'd love to learn to use it. > Yes, we do have problems of course .. but there's no way to fix > them unless users report them. You make an excellent point. I wonder how chicken-and-egg it is, tho? You need people to want to get involved, by lowering hurdles. Somebody who says "I'll give Felix a go" and then can't get it working w/in a day or two (ideally should just be a couple of hours) might give up? You have to see it from the perspective of a comparison shopper who sees lots of projects that claim to do wonders but in the end turn out not to even build w/out a lot of work. Felix might or might not be that, but a newbie can't tell and is most likely to assume the worst. (Or I'm just a bad, bitter, withered, sad sad person. Probably.) So some random thoughts: a) perhaps focus on 2 or 3 core systems and make those work as close to flawlessly as you can. when they don't work, have good error reporting so people can quickly see what is wrong. rather than trying to be 85% on 10 systems, be 110% on 2 or 3 at first. the more ancillary niche systems (which i like!) can come back into full play as you get more people on board. but start with a(n even more) stupendously solid core. b) get a sprint happening: physically bring together a bunch of people with a bunch of random hardware [modulo (a)] to do full installs from scratch, and see how it goes. really try to do usability on the install process! if everything goes w/out a hitch then use the time reserved for i dunno holding tutorials so people go away with the ability to really sell Felix. c) find a killer app. or, find a group that wants to use it that while it doesn't light your world on fire is enough to get people using it. witness haskell being used to build perl6 or being used to make Linux distros, or erlang being used to make games and web servers, that kind of thing which can get more - bad words? - main stream attention? basically, i would look to get some core, solid, real-world traction, and to develop with the classic agile approach of having real customers and top priority target systems & applications. once you have a gem of a core that is really kicking butt, then i think everything else will follow. more on the laser focus than on the buckshot. sincerely $0.01 and rapidly depreciating, perhaps? :-} P.S.: Felix *is* cool. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now. http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/ _______________________________________________ Felix-language mailing list Felix-language@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/felix-language
