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by msoloviev 3457 days ago
I released a fairly major project (a research-oriented workbench for graph manipulation) in a state of comparitive usability: https://github.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions

The main takeaway for me was that, unless you can tap into a preexisting pool of demand, grabbing people's attention is as hard and effort-consuming, if not more so, than actually solving a problem. One-on-one, I always had an easy time convincing people I knew that the program is useful for them, but simply throwing it out there and hoping someone would notice it was unexpectedly fruitless.
1 comments
Noxchi 3457 days ago
I am working on a networking algorithm and think this would be useful for testing and visualizing algorithms. But I had to look into the source and then the screenshots folder to figure out what this actually did.

You just have to develop some skills on how to better communicate your work to people. Everyone has this problem unless they develop the skills. Here's some things you should work on for promoting this project:

- User brainstorming. What kinds of people would find this tool helpful. I'll start off your list with 'anyone doing node algorithms, e.g. mesh networking, video game AI'

- Googlefu. Find these users across the web using Google's special operators. Note what kind of sites and communities they are a part of.

- Community reachout. Go to those communities and figure out how to communicate. If it's a blog or content site, could be as simple as leaving comments to more involved like writing posts.

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msoloviev 3457 days ago
Well, there's a README.md (that includes the screenshots) that Github displays under the repository listing, but I suppose there are sufficiently many files in the repository that not everyone would automatically be inclined to even scroll far enough down...

Visualising algorithms is an interesting angle I have largely neglected so far, since it's pretty different from the purpose I originally built the program for. I could try adding some more examples in the spirit of the sandpile model from the animated GIF, like pathfinding or selfish routing. Thanks for the suggestion!

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