THE FRUITS OF OUR LABOR OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT

One of the more interesting results of our extension work I briefly mentioned in our presentation, that being that in terms of contributions it really was easier to do so by in some sense “inventing a new problem” and solving that one. Its of course not as bad at that sounds, but you could say that it points towards the organic nature of open source project growth. I imagine the broader the goal, say, “Make an open source music player” the more directions contributions can go, because there isn’t exactly a defined endpoint. Just being functional isn’t very fun or interesting, and its hard to get tp the point where truly NO improvements can be made. Rather than a straight line from A to B, the project development is more like a growing spiderweb, I suppose you could say, with your core ideas at the center and anything you think would help expanding out.

In terms of interacting with the team, there felt like there was an interesting dynamic in terms of decision making, and something that I would normally consider a flaw about myself helped out a little bit this time around. I tend to feel really nervous If I don’t have a plan. Do I have a deadline? Do I know what the next step is? Do I even know what Im Doing? And at first I thought having a back and forth with people may exaccerbate that problem, as now im not just debating with myself but other people. However, that feeling of anxiousness at not having a plan forced me to figure out a plan sooner than it may have happened without it. There were times where we had no direction, not really sure what to do next, and that somewhat compelled me to “throw something at the wall and see what sticks” so to speak. Knowing that there were other people counting on it as well compelled me to think of something sooner rather than later. I finally found a way to live the “Fail Faster” idea as it were. (Though its not like there was that much TO fail, considering the tiny scope of the project.)