[dancer-users] Development of Dancer stalling? What to do?

[Yanick Champoux]

On 2020-12-21 10:27 a.m., Juan José 'Peco' San Martín wrote:
> I hope the Core developers will raise their hands if they feel they 
> can't spend enough time on the project. It's definitely not an easy year


I am not actively working on Dancer these days, but I feel the need to 
raise my hand and just point out that

1. yes, it's been a heck of a crazy year. As far as I can say, anybody 
who managed to spend any meaningful period of time since March doing 
anything but rocking back and forth under a running shower are bloody 
heroes with more fortitude than I have.

2. every time the 'why the project isn't more active?' discussion comes 
around, I want to point out that all of the people working on Dancer (as 
far as I know) are doing it in their spare time. I know that often the 
question is not born out of malice, but for the people working on the 
project, it comes out as "oh, you're giving out stuff for free. But how 
come you're not giving more?"

As I said, very often it's asked with the best intents. But it is 
soul-crushing. If I can recommend anything, in those scenarios I think 
it's more constructive to

1. explicitly thank the maintainers for the work they are already doing 
/ have done in the past. You'd be surprised how often projects are met 
with long, looooooong stretches of absolute silence, only interspersed 
with occasionals "that's broken, fix it!".

2. is it a project your company rely on to make money? Then have them 
contribute.

3. thank the maintainers, for they are the little fairies making your 
lives easier.

4. if you are a developer who want to see something happens in the 
project, roll up your sleeves and pitch in. Sometimes it's... not 
possible because the bottleneck exists somewhere else. In those cases? 
:look right: ... :look left: :whisper: fork the project and go wild.

5. don't forget to thank the maintainers, if for no reason that there is 
a chance that the next time they roll their eyes to the sky and shout 
"why do I even bother?" to the heavens, this is the memory that will 
stop them from giving up and running to the desert to become hermits.


*ahem* Soapbox speech ending. We can now resume our regular program.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

A big thanks to all the Dancer crew. I miss working on the project, and 
I miss you peeps. <3


Seasonal joy,
`/anick