Help - Sensorica/valuenetwork GitHub Wiki

We need help. What help do we need?

See also Roadmap and issues for new people and this document prepared for a proposed hackathon.

Short-term needs that the current programmers either do not know how, or do not have time, to do:

(They can learn, but you are probably better...)

  • Bring the Django code base up to the latest version, which as of this writing is 1.8.6, with 1.9 on tap. We're running on 1.4, which is officially no longer supported.
  • Get rid of all the Pinax dependencies.
  • Upgrade Bootstrap to the latest version or take a different approach to styling.
    • In conjunction, unify all the CSS and make the style theme-able/skinnable.
  • Improve the open-source-project features of the project, making it easier and more attractive to new programmers. For example:
    • Installation and deployment packaging and scripts (maybe Docker?).
    • API using Django-RestFramework, to be used by the emerging ValueFlows ecosystem as well as one or more new UI project(s).
    • Developer doc (using Readthedocs).
    • More regression tests (see existing tests). Not so necessary for others to do, but a good way to learn the internals.
    • Contributor guide.
    • Whatever else a real open-source project guru would advise.
  • If you are really good with Django, some help with some performance problems
  • Translations
  • Interactive Javascript graphics, e.g. better network diagrams, recipe editor, etc. See current semi-lame network diagram.
  • Mobile apps using APIs.
    • Might also want help creating APIs, but not as necessary.

General needs that the current programmers know how to do but could always use some help in:

  • Could host one or two interns with some basic knowledge of Python or Django, or Javascript, who want some actual project experience with experienced developers.
  • We welcome people to join the open source project as developers (unpaid for the foreseeable future, but if and when the project gets some income, it will be distributed to the contributors). (Caveat - see above, we aren't well set up as an open source project yet.)

Skill requirements vary depending on the task.

  • The base software is developed using the Python programming language and the Django web application framework (which is all written in Python). So if you know Python, you can learn Django pretty easily, and we can help. If you already know Django, so much the better.
  • We have a lot of need for dev ops skills (server admin, app packaging, deployment scripts, etc.)
  • Javascript, especially javascript graphics, could be used in several ways.
  • Documentation skills would be very useful.
  • Translation! Especially into French and Spanish. (We might have Spanish on the way.)
  • Design? User experience design?
  • If you want to participate, we can figure out something that you can do!