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On every project that I have worked on, developer support for projects increased with the amount of users. I would understand if there was no one using this pr

On every project that I have worked on, developer support for projects increased with the amount of users. I would understand if there was no one using this project and it was a one-person operation, but if you are getting so many requests that it is literally impossible to comply with the top 5% of them then you should have made friends with enough people in your community who would be suited for doing these tasks. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying do every single request and I am definitely not saying spend most of your time doing requests. But my the developers admission, "Taskwarrior [...] is easy to programmatically convert to any other data interchange format." If it would make that many people happy, to the point where you need to have a link handy to tell them "no", then it might be worth it just to write the feature that everyone seems to want, even if it is in an optionally usable format like a 'module'.

xioxox 11y ago
I've haven't noticed any increase in developers with my main project, which is very user heavy. It's a multiplatform GUI application, something which attracts a lot of non programmers. If you write some sort of library, you're going to get a lot of development help. That's not the case for a GUI app lots of people can use.
notacoward 11y ago
> On every project that I have worked on, developer support for projects increased with the amount of users. Cool anecdote, bro. Some projects are fortunate that way, but I'd say it's only those in the "Goldilocks" zone in which your user based overlaps significantly with average-developer skills. At one end of the scale, as another responder pointed out, the vast majority of people who care about your project will be below that level technically. At the other end of the scale, as for example when working on a distributed filesystem, the inherent difficulty of the project itself will be above that level. Either way, you'll get very few developers relative to the number of people making demands. The specific domain of a project also makes a difference here. If your projects are in a specialty and at a level where you get lots of developers, as I said, good for you. That doesn't mean your situation is sufficiently common to justify your callow dismissal of others' experience or concerns.
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't be personally abrasive in HN comments. This post would be fine without the snarky swipe at the beginning and the personal swipe at the end.

xioxox 11y ago

I've haven't noticed any increase in developers with my main project, which is very user heavy. It's a multiplatform GUI application, something which attracts a lot of non programmers. If you write some sort of library, you're going to get a lot of development help. That's not the case for a GUI app lots of people can use.

notacoward 11y ago

> On every project that I have worked on, developer support for projects increased with the amount of users. Cool anecdote, bro. Some projects are fortunate that way, but I'd say it's only those in the "Goldilocks" zone in which your user based overlaps significantly with average-developer skills. At one end of the scale, as another responder pointed out, the vast majority of people who care about your project will be below that level technically. At the other end of the scale, as for example when working on a distributed filesystem, the inherent difficulty of the project itself will be above that level. Either way, you'll get very few developers relative to the number of people making demands. The specific domain of a project also makes a difference here. If your projects are in a specialty and at a level where you get lots of developers, as I said, good for you. That doesn't mean your situation is sufficiently common to justify your callow dismissal of others' experience or concerns.

dang 11y ago
Please don't be personally abrasive in HN comments. This post would be fine without the snarky swipe at the beginning and the personal swipe at the end.