[hpsdr] Proposal

[Steve Bunch]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Philip Covington wrote:

> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Kirk Weedman <kirk at hdlexpress.com>  
> wrote:
>> Do you think that showing status information on each project would  
>> be good?
>>  Doing that would directly show any movement as you are  
>> suggesting.  Status
>> should be listed for hardware, software, etc..  That way site  
>> visitors and
>> those involved can see what is taking place and how often.  I will  
>> try to do
>> that for the verilog.hpsdr.org web page I have been given.  Right  
>> now its
>> pretty simple but I am open to suggestions for it.
>
> Yes, this would certainly help people ascertain the status of
> projects.  The negative side is that if the number of projects with
> inactive status begin to exceed the number of projects with active
> status.  Certainly projects such as Horton and Proteus (ones that I
> proposed) should be removed or placed in the inactive status column.
>
> Phil N8VB

I believe that it is useful to be able to glance at the main project  
listing page and tell the general type/status of a project, without  
having to read through every entry carefully, or even having to read  
all the wiki's.  Does putting the status beside each project satisfy a  
minimum level of utility?  Yes.  But is it the best we can do?  Not by  
a long shot.  I would propose a compromise: Simply separate the  
projects into three groupings on the one summary page:
   -	Projects that are making progress toward a published fabrication  
schedule, and are ready for people to sign up for.  And yes, we all  
know that "progress" can go in fits and starts, but as long as the  
schedule is kept updated, and the historical slips are visible, you  
can still recognize progress when you see it.  If the "progress" is  
questionable, or it's not time to ask for commitment to buy for some  
other reason, then the project leader should request that the project  
move down the page.
   -	Projects on which discussion has been held, there's a leader(s)  
who has taken responsibility for the project so far, at least some  
design progress has been made, the wiki and/or design activity have  
been active "recently" (say, in the last quarter), there may be a  
draft schedule of milestones, but the project has no committed  
delivery date that people should be counting on.  The requirements for  
projects in this stage may be largely-closed in order to be able to  
make design progress, and how open to change it is should be clearly  
stated in the project status.  When there's enough known for a  
reasonable schedule to be put in place, the leader can request to move  
this to the higher level.
   -	Project proposals or formational discussions -  no schedule or  
commitment to build yet.  This is an idea space, with no requirement  
even for commitment from the proposer to carry it through yet.  A  
project graduates to the next higher category at a leader's request to  
the webmaster, when the leader commits to make it happen and enough  
discussion/design has taken place to tell that it's probably feasible  
and interesting.

This isn't a big deal, and there should be no stigma attached to  
projects migrating down the page -- everyone has more ideas than time,  
it's just the way life is.  But if a project that someone is intensely  
interested in is simply not close enough to shipping, or not making  
progress, readers should be able to immediately tell that so they can  
find or create an alternative.  As a wise product planner once told  
me, you should ALWAYS have a list with more projects and ideas than  
you can possibly do, or there's something wrong with your  
imagination.  But you HAVE to know which you're committed to do and  
which you aren't, or people don't start other projects because they  
think that need is already covered!

Steve, K9SRB


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