Looking back I see I’ve been working to improve Codea’s examples for a long time.
I’ve tried to make upgrades to:
- voxel editor
- physics lab
- asset viewer
- block library
- voxel player
- cameras
- the sound examples project
- and of course, UI (like everyone and their brother lol)
I realize I’ve been doing this for years.
And I always thought it would help Codea, and that the help Codea needed was attracting newcomers.
I think maybe I’ve had that wrong. I think it might not be about attracting newcomers. I think it might be about keeping the old-timers.
If you look back through the forums you’ll see that some people hang around, and are very active, and then just disappear forever. Why? I have a theory. I may be way off. But this is my theory:
I think old-timers leave because NOBODY USES ANYBODY ELSE’S CODE.
If you go look back through the forums, what you will find is post after post after post that goes “here’s something cool that somebody could use for something,“ or “I made this cool effect that somebody could use for something,“ or “here’s some code that could help somebody else code something.“
Over and over and over people post things—often really cool things—and then nobody uses them for anything. I can understand why, eventually, someone who’s been around a long time loses interest. They work hard on something to help others, they become proud of it, they post it, and then… nothing.
Case in point: UI.
Everybody and I mean everybody seems to love making their own UI. Seriously, the old forums are chock full of post after post of people sharing their own UI.
Heck I’ve made my own UI.
All this while SODA is absolutely effing gorgeous.
Can you imagine being the developer of SODA? Can you imagine painstakingly providing a library for every UI widget you could ever want and then seeing not only does nobody use it, but people keep posting their own worse UI.
I can imagine doing that, and watching that, and from there thinking “why post anything else again ever?”
And the truth of it is, none of the old-timers used each other’s code either.
So… I’m stewing on that.
Look, I know there are other people here who love Codea, and who want to see it prosper, and who see all the potential it has, all that’s yet to be realized but isn’t far away. And I guess I want to make an appeal to them.
Come on, guys. Let’s get serious about using each other’s code.
I think if we don’t want people to burn out, they have to feel like their contributions get used.
When somebody posts something, ask yourself “could I make something cool with this?” Or even “could I make anything remotely interesting with this?” Or even “could I change a couple colors in this and improve it that little bit?”
It seems pretty clear to me that anyone who posts anything and says “somebody could use this for something” would love to see somebody use it for something.
Is anyone willing to give it a try with me? For it to work it has to be more than just me. What do you say, guys? Let’s try to make a point of doing some little thing, anything at all really, with any code that gets posted—and especially make a point of using the coolest things for something.
Whatever happens, I think I’m not going to try to make any more upgrades to examples.
I think, for the good of Codea, at least a core group of people need to agree to try this out.
We can call it “project C” or something cringe like “project night cobra,” or just simply “project use other people’s code”.
Are you up for it?