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I've noticed that a number of open source projects continue to use mailing lists in lieu of forums. I've personally found mailing lists to be cumbersome and unsearchable, making it harder to solve/discuss technical problems with projects employing them. Am I missing some inherit advantage to mailing lists or are they anachronistic?
Just to clarify, this isn't a "what good are mailing lists in general" question. I've just noticed that they are quite commonly used for software development projects whereas the rest of the internet seems to have moved on. So what is so good about employing mailing lists for software development?
Mailing lists are far better than forums if you follow multiple ones because they are push technology. If I care about N different projects, I can subscribe to N different mailing lists and have all the information in my mailbox, or I can go to N different forums that require N different logins and nearly N different interfaces.
One of the commenters suggested that with some web fora allow you to get an email notification when activity happens, and another suggested RSS feeds. To me, that's trying to re-invent a wheel that's already been invented, only you can't decide how many corners to put on it. So you're suggesting that rather than having all the conversations I'm interested delivered to my inbox where I can ignore or reply to them directly, I get an email or RSS feeder notification that there is an update, and then I can go log into all those different web fora and read or reply to them there? How is that an improvement?
Now that I've seen how well SO works, I think both mailing lists and forums should close up shop and carry on under their favorite SO tag.
Because you can follow them by checking your e-mail in the morning.
It is because
Most OSS developers have configured their mail workflow to be very efficiently.
I could imagine other solutions as well (including pull techniques like RSS), and most of them are used somewhere. But e-Mail is still the common denominator.
Note that one often finds interfaces to RSS, to the Web, to bug tracking systems, and to web services.
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My friend wants a way to organize her projects and tasks better at work. She would like to be able to:
Define Projects
Define (Weekly) Tasks for each Project
A Task is associated with a particular week (day/time granularity not needed)
Define Sub-Tasks for each Task
View a week's worth of tasks and their subtasks at a time
Zoom in to see a particular task in more detail
Zoom out to see a whole month's tasks in less detail
And last, but not least, she would like to share this data with her supervisor, so he can see it and make comments / adjustments.
I'd like to know what options are available and the pros/cons of each... I've considered:
Excel sheet
Pros: easy to share, availability (she and her boss both have Excel installed)
Cons: harder to maintain and create multiple views of the same data.
Access
Pros: easy to share (perhaps via storage on shared drive), availability
Cons: UI options not very rich, in my opinion
.NET with local db file
Pros: Rich UI options, quick development (i am most familiar with .NET)
Cons: Availability - they would both have to have my app installed, or it would have to live on a shared drive somewhere (which is probably an option I guess...)
Can anybody shed any light on this as far as available options, pros/cons I haven't thought of for these or any other technologies?
Thanks!
www.trello.com is the answer made by creators of Stackoverflow.com. I know I'm replying to a very old question. But it can be useful for those who will come across this page here on.
Also check out JIRA. JIRA is the project tracker for teams planning, building and launching great products. Its not a free solution but really effective.
Excel is a great tool for this kind of thing. We use it in our development team for our iteration status. At least, when your sole user hits pain points, you'll see what your real pain points are before starting to code something in .NET/Ruby/Java/etc., and it will therefore serve as a useful prototype.
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I am about to complete my masters degree in CS and anticipate having some free time to work on a side project. I feel that my programming skills and CS knowledge are sufficient to take on a serious project. Regrettably, I did not do the greatest job networking with other students during my university years, and I wish I had met some friends that I could collaborate on a project with.
I am wondering what people do to find other programmers with similar interests AND goals. There is the obvious suggestion of just getting out there and getting face time with people. This works at conferences and whatnot, but I'm living in an area where this really isn't effective.
I don't want to work for anyone or be contracted by anyone, rather, I'd like start from scratch and take a chance on a new idea, at the expense of my free time. I also like the prospect of taking a chance and hitting on something big, so I don't want to work on an open source project.
So where does the community of developers-entrepreneurs meet? There seems to be a social networking site for everything else these days. Is it twitter? facebook?
IMHO the best way to get started is with free software projects. Find a project you are interested in and start contributing. If you contribute both in code and participation on mailing lists and such in time you will start to build up a reputation and make good contacts.
Nothing beats face-to-face networking. Check for a local entrepreneur or developer group on Meetup.com. Sometimes you have to drive an hour to get some good networking action. Plan your vacations around visiting active tech areas and attend some big events (like Twiistup in southern California).
Follow some legit people on twitter and regularly post updates about your vision. You never know when the right person will be reading about your project on your twitter timeline.
Join some entrepreneur or developer groups on Facebook and start posting, adding friends and messaging them when you see something you like.
It just takes meeting that one right person, who knows 2 other right people, who know 4 other right people, to build a great team.
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The company is growing and we're starting to implement more and more complex software designs. I feel a need for some tracking software... I just don't know if it exists.
I currently maintain a Google Doc Folder (shared by our 3 developers) with a well-organized doc for each module. A doc is also created per major upgrade to a module or modules. For all other "tracking"... we have interal forums.
I want the following:
I want get an immediate printout of all Project_01 features or bug fixes on a particular project with the option to hide or show developer comments that have been implemented in the last X number of days.
This clearly suggests a web-based system where developers enter issues, bugs, and features with appropriate tagging. Entries should be commentable, taggable, dated, editable and reporting should be based upon tags, dates, developers, projects, etc.
I figure I'm going to be perceived as naive by the grizzled veterans floating around here, though I've been running this business for 4 years (so I've been around). I don't think we have the resources to absorb the overhead of implementing something like CMMI... but then again, I don't really know what's best.
My personal evolution to using Google Docs per Application Module + internal phpbb forums for everything else has been pretty nice compared to the way we started out (marker boards, Microsoft Word docs). I just feel like I can go a long ways towards exceeding client expectations if I had the ability to track features/bugs/issues better with superior on-demand reporting.
Thoughts?
Update: Went with MediaWiki integrated with Mantis
Take a look at fogbugz. It looks like it meets all your requirements.
Also, take a look at this other SO question: Free/Cheap Task/Bug Management software
I've good experiences with mantis. http://www.mantisbt.org
Yes, FogBugz and Trac are recommended.
I hope it helps.
I find this comparison of issue tracking systems either interesting or overwhelming.
I think with 3 developers, in the same building, you probably can get by without software tools. But, adopting something now, before you're so big/complex that you can't survive without it may save a lot of future pain.
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For an in house software project, what type of system I could use to centralize all the online team members discussion?
For our software development effort, currently our questions and answers are all scattered over emails.
Its hard to track ideas, questions, and answers etc.
What do you guys use? How do you manage such a situation?
Could a wiki be used for some thing like this? And if so, how could I get started? I have not done this before.
Our discussions could have sensitive information for the company as well so how could I address security?
In terms of technology, I would definitely go for a wiki (and Twiki is certainly not a bad choice). If it's installed on your company's intranet then there is no issue in terms of security.
One thing to keep in mind about a wiki is that it requires some work to keep it maintained; it's easy (and sometimes tempting) for everyone in the team to constantly just add pages without taking any linking of pages or structure into account. The moral here: a wiki is a very helpful tool for helping in communication, but it doesn't come for free.
However, depending on the kinds of communication/discussion that you're talking about: definitely watch out that online communication isn't replacing face-to-face communication. Depending on the interpersonal skills of the members of the team, it can some times be too easy for some people to shift to e-mail/wiki/forum use instead of verbal communication. Even having daily stand-up meetings (a la SCRUM) can be very useful in ensuring that everyone knows what is going on in the team instead of relying on electronic communication.
I'd suggest redmine
It has a forum and wiki per project, as you seem to need, and a lot more features very usefull when dealing with a project that requires several members to participate. And its opensource!
The only "issue" is that it was written using Ruby on Rails.
I would say Twiki, its an open source enterprise wiki.
Needs sometime to get used to it, but once you are, you will find opening new pages and topics very easy and quick.
One of the advantages IMO is its hosted on your own server
TWiki® - the Open Source Enterprise Wiki and Web 2.0 Application Platform
My own distributed team has experienced a similar problem, and we've solved it in the following way.
Day-to-day we run a continuous group chat (Campfire is an option). Announcements, questions, and answers can happen in chat, and it's recorded. You can search past transcripts as needed. This is simple and lightweight.
We also use a wiki for more permanent content. Sometimes material that starts in chat migrates to the wiki. The advantage of a structured wiki is that it makes it easier to onboard new team members and maintain specific content like team norms (like Subversion's HACKING doc).
The benefit is that we keep fast and lightweight chat for transient questions and so on, but we still have the wiki to hold content once it's deemed important.
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Does anyone know of any software or a good way for developers to build up a knowledge base of business rules that are built in to the software for help desk to use?
We already have a helpdesk software but we are not looking to replace this.
A wiki is definitely the way to go. Processes change, sometimes frequently, and in a fast-paced environment like a help desk a tool that allows quick, easy access and management of that type of content is extremely important to allow people to do their jobs effectively.
One of the greatest benefits I've found is the heiarchical sturcture of many wikis, allowing employees to find the correct content from a number of different customer angles.
Can you be more specific?
This may fall under "policies and procedures" management software. Here are some:
http://www.softscout.com/software/Human-Resources/Policy-and-Procedures.html
I'd like to find one that's more wiki-like or easier to integrate into a a website serving as a more general company knowlege base.
I would recommend a wiki wiht a "Wiki Gardener" role- someone who cleans up the duplicate entries and sorts.
Wiki technology with a Rich Text Editor option would useful if your Support Desk are not totally technical.
Having some structure is imperative, developing something in any Wiki that makes sense to the general editing populace, and has a low threshold to get from reading to editing. You will also possibly need a migration strategy for taking hundereds of little notes into something more readable and searchable.