I get joy from putting myself in the shoes of regular users, and I happen to be writing documentation! There’s only one of me, and I only work three days a week, but fortunately there are others in the community who are catalysing broader documentation efforts – @e-nastasia, @guillemcordoba, @hedayat, @sidsthalekar, and @tats_sato come to mind. In addition to creating learning materials for the Dev Camps, they’re also chipping in with official documentation and starting work on a series of exercises to help you learn how to Holochain.
Thanks for pointing out that the Holochain repos don’t give you any clear starting point. I wonder if tightening up the repos and giving good signposts on the org page would help? Ultimately we want people to start at https://developer.holochain.org (which is getting a revamp soon).
As for apps that regular human beings can use, we’re painfully aware of the lack of tooling. Developers first, then applications, then users. There’s been some good work recently re: making it easy to drop Holochain’s core as a library into other binaries, so that’s a step in the right direction. But yeah, long way to go yet, we’re aware! But our aim is to create applications to empower normal human beings (rather than just DeFi geeks), so we’re dedicated to the journey. The team’s resources may be modest, but the community is awesome.
@kamal are you still around? because I’m grateful for this offer – what I’m thinking about a lot these days is tightening up developer UX at all stages – not just tooling but ease of access to learning resources, quality of learning resources, identifying gaps in the ways we’re helping people understand Holochain.
Though as a group, who have been at it for now more than 10 months in COVID time has been meeting regularly but havent really figured out the way to offer services!
We have done 2 online community gatherings, with 3 test run - website purchase and pickup after a week (with few board members) involved.
On the flip side, my chinese wife, using WeChat (and spreadsheet sorta plugin) makes regular purchases on a weekly basis, with her vendor (who imports from China and sources food from California).
Some of the challenges noted:
Board has been heavy on process rather than pushing for product or service
Technology doesn’t seem as important as much as community, where nurturing is lacking!
Local produce is more expensive, making it uncompetitive in long term
Hi @pauldaoust - I’ve got a pretty packed schedule for the next few months. I’m happy to be a user tester and give feedback, but at the moment I wouldn’t be able to dive into a project. Please do DM me if you’d like me to be a user tester - happy to give feedback as a designer looking to navigate the Holochain space.
@Aryabhatta sure! The gitter welcome chat is here valueflows/welcome - Gitter. Or feel free to start a new thread in this forum and we can chat there. Or wherever you think appropriate, really. I’ll read your doc on Phoenix Coop. In a bit of a flow right now, but will get to it!
Thanks for the kind offer @kamal, and also for being frank about your constraints. I’ll definitely keep you in mind for user testing needs in the future!
Excellent @Kamal I have Been just appointed into a government steering committee to oversee and offer advice on an organic watersheds in Central Sri Lanka very close to where I live. I’m also hoping to deploy an environmental education curriculum focused on a biodiversity based certification program to encourage sustainable organic principles. Valuing ecosystem services, reforestation and restoration of the watershed will be the second phase but for now determining the IT infrastructure for the zone, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the Farmers and the management of the zone is the first step. I hope some of you will be able to contribute to set up a software based, landscape level approach to organic food cultivation and watershed management.
I’ll read your doc on Phoenix Coop. In a bit of a flow right now, but will get to it!