Am I the only one who's a little skeptical of this guys plan? Looking at this from an objective standpoint, and losing focus on the idea that Smalltalk is a great language that deserves this chance, the focus of this funding is being put on an individual who requires $20,000 for 4-6 months of work? Where do you factor in 2 months of wiggle time with a budget that low? Didn't he run the numbers? I have to imagine he took a look at his month to month expenses, subtracted luxuries, kept some "just in case I need a hospital visit" money? It seems like a 30 year dev would have a little money in the bank to keep himself working on /whatever/ passion he desires for at least 4-6 months?
I just think the whole financial aspect of this is fishy. And presuming that he raises enough money to get this project to the public, what if there's another 3 months of work before we can all really use it because of some oversight? Does the community need to kick him another $10,000?
His development architecture seems relatively sound from the 90,000ft. view, but there's not enough detail here to make me think he can actually pull off a 6 month development cycle of a new JVM based Smalltalk language. I don't really see any evidence apart from being a smart guy and passionate tinkerer that he could take a project to a community, maintain and grow it collaboratively, then end up with something thoughtful and elegant. While I wish this project all the best, he's done a very poor job of convincing me to give him money and I don't think that's just my obstinate view of failed crowd-funded development projects talking.
I had the opposite take. It seems to me he's modeling his approach on Perl Foundation grants, which pay hackers for part-time or full-time work for a specific set of deliverables.
These grants are generally deemed successful in terms of delivery (in part because they go to highly experienced developers who have already been contributing for years).
Maybe I misunderstand the Perl Foundation grants model, but, isn't a great deal of that success due to the highly experienced developers who have already been contributing for years? Would the same success apply when the codebase in question has had little or no iteration?
Not to mention that TPF is a group of many committees who report to an entire board?
If there was mention of a governing board of developers who want to establish committees for developing the language further, I think that'd be a much more sensible and focused use of the funds. My perspective of his proposal was basically, "Pay a minimum rate for my time over the next 4-6 months and see where I can take this language". Something that leaves me even more uneasy is his ability to communicate the finer points of where this funding might be directed, or what the promise for delivery actually is. I have to believe there is some kind of metric for his progress thus far and his projections for progress moving forward; anything less is bush league panhandling for a hobby passion.
Just my two cents, obviously, and no offensive to the aims of the project author, which I actually think are interesting and probably worthwhile; but interesting and worthwhile are not cause for donation.
>>there's not enough detail here to make me think he can actually pull off a 6 month development cycle of a new JVM based Smalltalk language
Redline Smalltalk runs today and compiles Smalltalk source into bytecode in Java Class format. The funding is to flesh out the runtime classes and tooling.
>>he's done a very poor job of convincing me to give him money
I appreciate this feedback. Could you elaborate on what sort of things would convince you?
>> Could you elaborate on what sort of things would convince you?
What the money would actually be used for, which you just shed some more light on. It was really vague exactly which aspect(s) of the development the funds would be focused on, aside from "bringing the project to release", and you didn't really clarify how that's qualified. It's a highly technical project, I'd expect a little bit more meat.
Overall, I felt like there was some detail lacking with regard to the "how" of you getting to the goal. In theory, every funded development plan has some form of timeline(schedule/plan) and milestones, hopefully with some really vague dates or estimates. I just wasn't persuaded you had planned that far ahead yet. The project, based purely on the Indiegogo page, seemed to still be a hobby project that you enjoyed playing with. I simply can't justify adding to a $20,000 development fund based on the concept that you'll continue to flesh things out as you go along.
I haven't seen a serious track record of highly adopted open source projects from you(if I was looking in the wrong places or mistaken about the popularity of some of your projects, please correct me) and that doesn't persuade me to take you at your word. I'd need some meat in terms of what I'm actually funding and not what you hope to build. I can't in good conscience fund a project based on the end result or deliverable, I have to fund your process, planning ability, architectural consideration and senior experience; I could really only trust the last point, and not as much as I would have liked to.
I still appreciate what you're aiming to do, and that you've put so much energy into the concept already, but I don't appreciate it enough to contribute dollars. If you were looking for donations to continue to evolve the project after release and there was a community behind it saying good things, I'd be inclined to take the "end goal" as enough explanation and review the history of how things have evolved to see if I think you're reliable enough to fund. In this case, you want money to deliver an initial release, and I'm going to need to know how you want to get there.
I just think the whole financial aspect of this is fishy. And presuming that he raises enough money to get this project to the public, what if there's another 3 months of work before we can all really use it because of some oversight? Does the community need to kick him another $10,000?
His development architecture seems relatively sound from the 90,000ft. view, but there's not enough detail here to make me think he can actually pull off a 6 month development cycle of a new JVM based Smalltalk language. I don't really see any evidence apart from being a smart guy and passionate tinkerer that he could take a project to a community, maintain and grow it collaboratively, then end up with something thoughtful and elegant. While I wish this project all the best, he's done a very poor job of convincing me to give him money and I don't think that's just my obstinate view of failed crowd-funded development projects talking.