[vtk-developers] Attracting next generation of developers

[Bill Lorensen]

Berk,

I agree that users of VTK are untapped as potential devleopers.
Perhaps a short, focused outreach email to the VTK users list is in
order.

Bill


On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
>
> +10 to more outreach and better documentation of, well, everything.
>
> The language is probably an issue also. Let alone the C++ 11 issue, Python,
> Javascript, Java etc. are definitely taking away some developers.
>
> What I am most interested in is making some of the large group of users out
> there into VTK developers. This is something we have never done well. Even
> when we had bunch more users & developers. I think that this is an
> accessibility thing. Being more open to contributions. Doing more outreach.
> Doing more things like Google Summer of Code. Doing more hack-a-tons. Other
> ideas?
>
> Modernization is certainly part of it. Of course modernization while
> maintaining the right level of usability - not something ITK has done
> exceedingly well I have to say. We are making decent progress in this area.
> Where we lack most often is communicating all of the work going on.
>
> To me some of this comes back to workflow and tools by the way. Workflow and
> tools make communication and outreach easier or harder. I'll leave that part
> of the discussion to the other thread.
>
> What do other people think? What are people willing to do more of?
>
> Best,
> -berk
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Berk Geveci <berk.geveci at kitware.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Moved this discussion to a new thread.
>>
>> Berk,
>>
>> I think we need to reach out to potential developers. Especially those
>> outside of Kitware(and their paying customers) and the long term VTK
>> developers outside Kitware. Those communities can adapt to anything.
>> We need to focus on is how can we can attract new developers. In the
>> past, new processes were adopted and adapted by Kitware, their
>> customers and hard core VTK developers with very little input from the
>> broader community of potential developers.
>>
>> ITK is going through the same issues but addressing the issues not
>> through process change. They are looking at outreach and better
>> documentation of the current process. Matt McCormick at Kitware has
>> been leading this effort.
>>
>> I think there are lots of non-process improvements possible. But I
>> don't have a silver bullet for attracting new developers. Perhaps VTK
>> is too old school for today's developers. Stuck with an old
>> architecture, old graphics architecture, old and complex languages. I
>> honestly don't know what the root causes are. If we only include the
>> old-timers in theses discussion then we will not attract a younger set
>> of devleopers.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>



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