Codeplex Projects | The Coffeehouse

JoshRoss
A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

Has anyone posted something on CodePlex and received any helpful input? I posted a VSTO add-in for excel 2007, that facilitates data exchange between sql and excel. I think most of the downloads were people clicking on the wrong thing.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Since joining CodePlex in 2007, posting my first project in 2008, and then posting a far more popular project in 2009, I've learned a few things about computer users in general:

Most users are both idiots and invisible. These are people who just download things when they're available and never register to download, or post on forums with feedback or questions. This isn't a simple case of these being non-English speakers, there are plenty of these kind of people in the English speaking world already.
I doubt many people are interested in VSTO for Excel 2007. Your tool is very technical and the people who stand to gain the most from this tool probably won't have a clue... and would also be in Category 1 as described above
Also I understand employees of other companies who make use of your components might not be so willing to give feedback or discuss things for fear of breaching confidentiality agreements, which are commonplace for intra-business applications, where your software would come in handy.
Finally, advertise heavily and shamelessly. You might lose your reputation amongst smart, intelligent people who actually give you feedback, but they aren't in Category 1, and they're also a very very small minority.

JoshRoss
A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

In reply to W3bbo

#Sep 18th @ 2:18 PM

I hadn't even contemplated confidentially as a consideration in communal criticism. I would imagine that a niche project would have a better chance at becoming popular than a general-use project such as a calculator or text editor. I've seen the music genome project that classifies music, it would be fun to do something similar with software. I would never want to create software that would be graphed in a tight cluster with other more popular titles.

CannotResolveSymbol
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In reply to JoshRoss

#Sep 18th @ 4:54 PM

It's not directly related to Codeplex, but you're attempting to do open source, ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar is worth a read. Some interesting material there (some of which has to do with your feedback issue).

androidi

I often download various source builds that simply sound like they might be interesting to test or study, if I had the time or real need to, someday. If I can't find it again when actually needed I'll atleast remember downloading it and have a copy just incase the site hosting it had gone away or something. So I have hundreds of downloaded apps to every one I actually spend more than a minute looking at what's inside the zip.

Maybe that makes sense or doesn't. Just a possible explanation for lot of downloads without feedback.

AndyC

There is also the common case: I hit a problem, search th internet and find tool X. I give X a try, it solves the issue. I move on. Or I give X a try, it doesn't solve my problem, so I forget it and try elsewhere.

The simple fact is, most people have come to expect that submtting feedack on a free project is unlikely to resolve any issues they have in the immeadiate timeframe, if ever. And if they aren't having problems, they have absolutely no motivation to provide feedback because whatever problem they had is solved.