10

I seem to have a never ending stream of more-or-less original, more-or-less cool ideas for software/apps/stuff yet to be written on my mind. Sometimes, I decide to just start implementing my idea. Several hours later, I end up with a decent, more-or-less working prototype of what I'm trying to build. Then, my alarm clock goes ringing and I have to get back to the real world, tired as hell. In most cases, the stuff I started remains unfinished forever. Sometimes, that's okay. Other times, I honestly feel like that's a bummer.

But I realize that there are sites like GitHub and there are many other coders out there. Is there a place where one can post ideas, proposals, concepts, or rough-around-the-edges-code in order to find people who are interested in collaborating on projects?

Edit: I am aware of "the usual way" – keep developing on your own for some period of time, open-source the code, mention your project on dev blogs, IRC or wherever else you go; eventually attracts others.

What I'm looking for is a place to connect with other devs (e.g. of different specializations) on the early stages of a project.

Improve this question
3
  • Ugh, Thomas, you killed all of my writing style from the question! Well, maybe it's for the better of it. Commented Sep 24, 2011 at 14:22
  • Put the code on github, make a developer blog, hang out in IRC. Commented Sep 24, 2011 at 14:27
  • Approach people at the coffee shop with the coolest stickers on their laptop. Commented Sep 25, 2011 at 1:03

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
1

Sounds like a match-making site for developers. You can make it free and then take a lot of time to weed through all those who know Java for example. No one is going to qualify candidates in the areas of: verify experience, test skills, availability for necessary time commitment for free for those who lack the expertise to evaluate programmers.

The same is true for developers being able to verify those with domain knowledge. Who is going to pay for a site where people list their ideas? Regardless if I have the skill set you need, I don't know if your idea is any good nor do I know if you are capable of implementing the sales and marketing side. You may have the greatest idea to sell to lawyers, but I would have no idea if it would work or how much sweat-equity I'd put into it.

Improve this answer
1

I fonder if someone will partner on basis of just a proto-type. Even if someone likes the idea, he will go for the implementation on his own. You can only think of collaboration in terms of opensource project once you have a working model. People then can try your app and if interested collaborate with you.

That's just my way of thinking. Other answerer's may tell you the way to go for it.

Improve this answer
1
  • Oftentimes, certain parts of a project require above-average knowledge of a topic or two. For example, for a proper implementation of a recent brainchild of mine, I could really have used someone who knows his way around computer linguistics, heuristics, clustering and stuff. A guy who is proficient in these areas is quite likely to know much less about e.g. frontend development than I do. Commented Sep 24, 2011 at 14:49
0
  • You can hire people.
  • You can try and start a project in a fairly homogenous programming community that may be highly interested in your idea. For example, the blender.org crowd could surely be interested in using Microsoft's Kinect in some way. Just use the usual tools and languages the community uses, and something may get done.
  • You can go the "usual" way and start to publish something reasonably documented and reasonably useful on github, and hope someone else also gets interested.

In my humble experience, most other ways really won't work.

You seem to under-estimate the time and effort it takes to plan and organize a project with complete strangers with no one knowing the other people's skills and interests.

You won't be saving time vs doing it on your own, until LONG into the project. But likely, it will break apart long before then, over a dispute over some silly thing (which programming language / framework to use for feature X, how to implement feature Y), or any other such thing.

It is much better to either be able to dictate the terms of the project (because you're the employer) or having laid down some framework for the project by providing the first implementation, if you want to get anything done.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Well, I hoped to see someone post a link to some site that allows you to overcome the barrier between "complete strangers with no one knowing the other people's skills and interests.". Since no such place seems to exist yet (or to be well known enough), the concept either doesn't work out at all or no one actually took the effort to set up the system. Looks like my next project is going to be "a site where you can find people with the right skills for your FOSS project or find a FOSS project to dedicate your precious spare time to". Thanks for your answer! Commented Sep 24, 2011 at 18:05

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.