[school-discuss] Schoolforge site and software reviews

[LM <lmemsm@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Paul McKimmy <paul.mckimmy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>    I am appreciating everyone's willingness to collaborate.  DCDC will be providing a Drupal theme based on these mockups, plus some requested mail list buttons, >shortly - hopefully next week.


Am hoping one of the buttons points to the wiki as well.  Will be nice having the mailing list connections.  Look forward to seeing the results based on the mockups.

Am just wondering if we need to add any more detailed information to our software entries about what types of system resources a program needs to run before the reviews start.  I tried adding screen libraries and dependencies categories to the requirements section.  (Haven't had time to add it for every program listed though.)  For me, if I see screen libraries like ncurses or SDL and I don't see any dependencies like needing a Java virtual machine or Perl, I know a program is typically lightweight and should run decently on older hardware.  However, not sure if an average reviewer would be familiar with issues like which screen libraries are lightweight and differences between running interpreted versus compiled software or between software that requires a virtual machine to run and software that doesn't.  Also, I know some users are concerned with whether their software looks uniform (skinning/themes).  If that's an issue, again, the screen library needed becomes very important.  Some users might find it easier to use accessibility tools with certain user interfaces than others.  Is there something we can do to better clarify what's good for older hardware or limited resources or particular needs and what isn't? 

One problem with reviews is that they're going to be very much based on what the users expect for their environment.  So, if reviewers are looking for an all in one, does everything type of graphics editor, they'd probably give a program like gimp a good review and a program like aewan a bad one.  However, if a reviewer only has a console environment and is on a system without X installed, aewan may be great and gimp would be useless.  Personally, I like small programs that do one function well but many users prefer software suites and programs that try to do it all.  I think Schoolforge should provide a medium to find software for a variety of needs and purposes.  Just wondering if there's an easier way to let users match their particular needs to finding the right Open Source software for them.

Sincerely,
Laura
http://www.distasis.com/cpp