Re: [go-nuts] Will somebody commit to buying gophers.org on godaddy? I have a great idea for a project.

[Maxim Khitrov]

On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 2:09 AM, Mortdeus <mort...@gocos2d.org> wrote:
> So this is my idea for the website. Gophers.org would be a website for Go
> developers to create their own profiles to display urls to their projects,
> where they can write their own blogs, and write how they use go in
> production, tutorials, ect. I think its a great idea and im willing to work
> on this project.
>
> However the problem is the domain is already owned and they are selling it
> in an auction right now. As of this writing there are no bids on it and the
> minimum bid is 500 dollars. I believe that the url is essential for a go
> community and am humbly asking if developers would commit any donations for
> this purchase.
>
> If the goteam would be willing to buy it please do so.

Please do not support these sort of tactics by any domain registrar,
especially godaddy. It's unethical to hold domains hostage in this
manner and the last thing people should be doing is agreeing to go
along with it.

No domain is essential. gophers.golang.org would be just as good and
costs absolutely nothing.

- Max

[Remi Gillig]

I agree totally, and having it on .golang.org makes more sense to the whole Go ecosystem. It would be more or less like blogs.msdn.com I hope.

[Sathish VJ]

Also even 'godaddy.com' irks me now ... surreptitiously claiming parenthood.  If I had a choice I'd wrestle godaddy.com away from godaddy.com and put up a single web page that says "NO YOU ARE NOT!".

:-)

[Rodrigo Moraes]

> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 2:09 AM, Mortdeus wrote:
> I believe that the url is essential for a go community

We are very creative people and can think on much better names, like
for example suricates.org. Then we just need to change the Go mascot
to a suricate.

Now, seriously, there are a ton of non-taken names that could work.
The name is nothing. It could be hosted on any lame domain and if it
is good and gets adopted, later move to a good domain (see
go.pkgdoc.org which once was gopkgdoc.appspot.com - the domain didn't
came first, the project that people loved came first).

-- rodrigo

[Mortdeus]

Hmmm well perhaps gophers.org might end up being released back to the public market. The thing is gophers is just perfect in my opinion. Its a name that perfectly defines what the website is and makes sense and easy to remember. Names like facebook, become brands that sell the site. To many here it seems you would suggest "thefacebook.com" was good enough that the fact they paid tens of thousands for "facebook.com" was a waste.

However marketing experts would disagree. In a way the brand sells the website because it describes what the site is and is easy to remember and spell. Things like appearance also matters. 

http://www.verdemedia.biz/what-we-do/web-design-development/

The fact is were all gophers already. We will use any site regardless. However thats not the problem. We are a very strong and intelligent community of developers who are completely fascinated with this language. The problem is this, and ill describe with my personal trouble with golang at the moment.

Im starting a gocos2d library for google chrome and appengine. Its a great project that beautifully extends the cocos2d family and provides a great solution over cocosd2dx-html. Why program in javascript when you can program in Go in the browser and use appengines channels to make online based games.

http://www.gocos2d.org/ 

Its a great project in my opinion that aims at golang specifically to attract developers to the language.

The problem is, I cant develop it yet. There is work that needs to be done. gles2, egl, opengl headers and a go frontend compiler specifically for PNACL. Sure these projects have been started but they are only being worked on by a few developers [1-3] perhaps, and while ive jumped on these projects its added a huge workload requirement. Its a daunting experience that you would have to develop a compiler for a language just to use the language, but its the dedication I have because I believe in this language can grow to the top. But we just need more man power. Its like go has become the best kept secret in the tech world 4 years after its debut. A cult language to some, a hobby language to many.

Just continue to let go be something that developers pester their co-developers to consider using it?

In all honesty I see a problem with programming languages in general. Fragmentation of information and resources.

Google any language, python, C, C++, Ruby.

What you find is that there are the languages website, and site after site of information fragmentation.

Golang.org has already made a huge leap over many other languages because of its huge approach to documentation in your face and none of the BS like on python.org. You are presented with an attractive simple page that encapsulates the google feeling that so many people find attractive in google products.

However when you google golang, you find that its just like all the other languages again. The website, and fragmentation of information resources. In fact, the 2 most important projects 3rd party projects go.pkgdoc.org, and godashboard.appspot.com arent even on the first page. Somebody's blog is higher than those. 

Yes golang does link to the godashboard. But then the connection end there. You can fish around a bunch of different sites and surf google all day.

Why do we have to go to stackoverflow to post a problem we have for a language. Why do we have to surf a bunch of different blogspots to read about tutorials and user experiences. Why do beginners have to go to a site like codeacademy to learn how to use a language. It doesnt make any sense too me? Now im not suggesting we introduce a general site for programmers that address all languages. 

I dont think thats our responsibility. However, we can set the trend and disrupt the current way things work by making an open source website written in go for gophers that anybody can contribute to. And what better way than to have a domain like gophers.org. golang.org and its companion site gophers.org should be the first and second links you find when you google "the go programming language" and the fragmentation should end there.

[Mortdeus]

Sure, we can have godevs.org, golangclub.org, gopherscommunity.org, golanggophers.org.

Let me honestly ask if anybody is satisfied by these? I think they suck. Sure the domain name system is a hug scam. I agree that it stifles innovation and is just a huge market of freeloaders making money off our ideas. 

But what else can we do? If somebody else buys the domain for another stupid search site or chooses to sit on the domain for another year do you think its just okay?  

[i.e http://www.gopher.com/facepalm]

Do you think our lack of conforming is going to disrupt anything with all the people who do conform? 

Sometimes disappointing sacrifices have to be made to realize a greater vision for the go language.

That vision starts by acquiring a brand that fits with golang.org like pb&j so that anybody with little intuition can say hmmm, i wonder where do gophers hang out? [gophers.org]  

[André Moraes]

[joke]
gophers.org would be a site to WWF to promote the conservancy of
gophers and rodents
[joke]

I don't see the golang community as fragmented, more like distributed.

there is:
reddit.com/r/golang
golang blog
go-lang.cat-v
gophertimes
go.pkgdoc.org
Golang G+

When I need some library, most of the time I use:
google
go-lang.cat-v
search malling-list
go package dashboard

Maybe the landing-page of golang.org should have more links to those sites.

--
André Moraes
http://amoraes.info

[Mortdeus]

Also let me emphasize that I like gophers.golang.org if it linked to by golang.org's buttons as my first solution to this problem. I only suggest gophers.org if go team wont allow this project. 

On Sunday, August 5, 2012 7:23:14 AM UTC-5, Maxim Khitrov wrote:

[Mortdeus]

I didnt even know about gophertimes. -_- See what I mean? 

[Rodrigo Moraes]

On Aug 6, 12:52 pm, Mortdeus wrote:
> That vision starts by acquiring a brand that fits with golang.org

That is the wrong approach imo. Don't think about branding and naming
first. First do it. Make it work. People will go to whatever domain if
it is worth to go there. And you can change the name later and people
will follow if it is worth. So make it worth first.

-- rodrigo

[Mortdeus]

 Some brands were discovered first and they invented a brand later (facebook, twitter, reddit). Sometimes brands just come to people later (google). And sometimes brands are completely ridiculous to the point that they just work. (icanhascheezburger).  Some brands suck (digg, yahoo). 

Heres the thing, this website is nothing like those websites. 1. This is not a new innovative project that can define a new label. (spotify)

Im talking about making a serious attempt at disruption here. To bring style to the web front much like facebook, twitter, reddit has done, but for go programmers. The fact is all the biggest players in tech know that to the consumer the shiniest product draws the attention then the functionality keeps the interest there. 

There is no reason why more people arent using Go other then the fact that they dont know better. Seriously, ive tried so many languages because they fascinate me. Go has fascinated me on a completely unprecedented level because of the greater vision of the language being a programming experience rather than a different syntax. 

Why does the experience have to end at the the compiled binary?  

[Mortdeus]

i mean brand invented first, product worked on later * 

[Zippoxer]

>  The fact is all the biggest players in tech know that to the consumer the shiniest product draws the attention then the functionality keeps the interest there.  

This is only true if you have competitors. If you don't, then only stupid people will not visit your site because it's gopherbook.com instead of gophers.org and we don't want stupid people in our community, so that's a win.

If you haven't noticed, I just proposed gopherbook.com as an alternative. Inspired by facebook that you said is a great name.

[Paddy Foran]

I'd like to offer gopherplus.com for consideration. :p

[Andrew Gerrand]

On Tuesday, August 7, 2012, Mortdeus wrote:

 Some brands were discovered first and they invented a brand later (facebook, twitter, reddit). Sometimes brands just come to people later (google). And sometimes brands are completely ridiculous to the point that they just work. (icanhascheezburger).  Some brands suck (digg, yahoo). 

Digg wasn't a bad brand. They were huge before reddit came along with a (much) better product and took their users. 

Are you really saying Yahoo!, a top 5 web site for nearly two decades, is a bad brand? If Yahoo! Is doing badly its despite their brand, not because of it. 

People thought Google sounded silly before they realized how awesome the search was. :-) now it is one of the most valuable brands in the world. 

What's my point? Brands are built on products, not the reverse. Build it and they will come. 

Heres the thing, this website is nothing like those websites. 1. This is not a new innovative project that can define a new label. (spotify)

Im talking about making a serious attempt at disruption here. To bring style to the web front much like facebook, twitter, reddit has done, but for go programmers. The fact is all the biggest players in tech know that to the consumer the shiniest product draws the attention then the functionality keeps the interest there. 

There is no reason why more people arent using Go other then the fact that they dont know better. Seriously, ive tried so many languages because they fascinate me. Go has fascinated me on a completely unprecedented level because of the greater vision of the language being a programming experience rather than a different syntax. 

Why does the experience have to end at the the compiled binary?  

Admirable sentiment, but if the only thing preventing you from acting on it is lack of a catchy domain name then you are not serious. 

Andrew

[Mortdeus]

It has nothing to do with catchy domain names. Its how I view works of art. This may sound weird to most, but I thought why isnt there a gophers.org and from that premonition I could see exactly what was missing. The name to me personally, its an intimate connection with something that sparks my creativity.

In my eyes, gophers is who we are and gophers.org is where we go. And honestly, at some point I will probably buy the domain myself sometime in the future just to make that vision a reality. But until then my motivation is put on hold to work on the projects that are my full time commitments at the moment. (i.e llgo for pnacl and gocos2d).

Gophers will use any site, however people who arent gophers will need to be drawn into the Go community. This language needs to seriously disrupt the current trend in a big way. I mean people are starting to build servers in javascript! It's horrible :( .      

[Mortdeus]

[André Moraes]

> Gophers will use any site, however people who arent gophers will need to be
> drawn into the Go community.

http://golang.org/project/#community solves this.

Maybe instead of a fragment url this could be a page and a hyperlink
could be added in golang.org top bar.

> This language needs to seriously disrupt the
> current trend in a big way.

The current trend is already moving, people are now writing concurrent
code instead of serial.
Erlang, Scala, Clojure, JavaScript, Go
All those languages are being used to implement concurrent
applications which make a better use of the current line of processors
(low clock many cores).

> I mean people are starting to build servers in
> javascript! It's horrible :(.

People don't write servers in JavaScript, they write applications that
talk's http. Most people put their NodeJS infrastructure behind some
other server (Nginx, Apache, etc....)

And when they put NodeJS in front, the HTTP component is written in C
not in JavaScript.

Also, if people like writing pyramid code[1] it's their choice of
living in pain.

[1] http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449398583/chap_3.html#id390940830750