Five years of LWN [LWN.net]

Code to the World

Posted Jan 23, 2003 16:21 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

One of the things I learned from watching the Mozilla and other code project is that if your code is so dirty its not readable by more than the original writers you get little help. People will download, look at it and then head off to easier things.

It is better to help in private for a while and then work on the code in public than just dropping your pants the first time someone asks you too.

Code to the World

Posted Jan 23, 2003 16:31 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I actually feel pretty good about the LWN code. It has been designed and written with the idea that we're going to have to deal with it for years. There are a couple of rugs with a fair amount of stuff swept under them, but, as a whole, it's not bad. What's holding up a release is:

I want to do a real security audit first. Security, too, should be in pretty good shape, but I need to convince myself of that.
A little documentation might be nice before inflicting the code on others.
Simple readiness to deal with a free software release - mailing lists, etc. If people look at the code at all there will be a lot of questions, and dealing with them will take some time.
A port to Quixote 0.6 will also be needed, and should be done prior to any release. That will be a bit of a pain to do right, but the end result will be worthwhile.

For some strange reason, I've been mostly focused on getting the feature set together and getting LWN on a reasonable financial footing. I'll get there with the rest, but keeping priorities straight during this time has been crucial.

Code to the World

Posted Jan 23, 2003 17:22 UTC (Thu) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link]

Please publish soon.

Stick warning signs at it all you want,
but publish now.
At least with anonymous CVS access or so.

This is an important symbol.

Re: Code to the World

Posted Jan 24, 2003 11:53 UTC (Fri) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

* Make the website HTML & CSS code validate

IMHO, that should be a goal too. Although W3C's recommendations aren't truly free and open, they are the best we have and we should make sure to follow them.

Code to the World

Posted Jan 29, 2003 5:34 UTC (Wed) by komarek (guest, #7295) [Link]

Don't sweat the documentation too much. It's not like we'll read it anyway. =-)

-Paul Komarek