beetbox / beetbox/beets

Blog/Wiki idea: meet the users/meet the devs

Open
#2,386 3 comments 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
discussion docs
Dominant language
Python
Stars
15.7k
Forks
2.1k
Avg merge
4d 21h
Merged PRs (30d)
31

Description

First of all let me apologize in advance if this seems unclear, inappropriate as an issue or too evangelistic. This is an idea I've had for some time but I'm only pulling the trigger late at night today, so expect some enthusiasm-induced shenanigans.

The main idea would be to provide some content for the beets blog, to flesh out the docs with more practical infos, as well as for more advanced users to share tips and tricks, and to meet different usecases. The number of plugins and features of beets has been rising a lot lately, and I myself have been surprised by some functionalities I never suspected. A companion idea would be to attract some contributions as well with the "*Meet a dev*" format, but that is less clear in my mind.

The concept would go along the lines of [this series of interviews](https://usesthis.com/). Basically, a comfortable user of beets tells us about how he came to use beets, what's his flow, what plugins he uses,... An interviewer wouldn't be needed, and the answers may or may not contain more personal elements.

My first draft of a standardized set of questions would be as follows:

* Introduce yourself. How did you come in contacts with beets?
* How do you have beets installed? (OS + way of installing beets, especially interesting for windows users given the state of python (I think? Not really a windows user.), but also interesting for Mac and Unix users (package manager vs pip vs source))
* Where do you get your music from? What does an import look like for you?
* What packages do you use? Showcase some of them if you desire, elaborate on the config of some of them if you feel it is necessary.
* How do you listen to your music? If relevant, how does beet interact with your portable devices?
* If relevant, how do you store your music (Raid, on the cloud, sync between boxes, ...)?
* Can you share your config with us? Are there last minute quirks you want to share?
* Exit comments?

This would also allow for newer users to have a look at a set of more rounded out config files that are currently actually in production, to summarize what mostly everyone is doing (I'll take a guess at fetchart/embedart, chroma and convert), and to also be put in contact with more exotic stuff.

Now for the dev part... I guess if we go through with this, the first couple of segments would be with actual beets contributors and regulars (even though I really, *really* hope we'd get to hear from other users as well!), and that those people would still make up a significant proportion even in the longer term.
These beet developers could answer some extra questions centred around, you guessed it, contributing to beets. This is less clear for me and there might actually be a lot less content to go over than I think, but some questions that come to my mind right now are as follows:

* How did you start contributing to beets? Where do you recommend to start for a fresh contributor?
* Editor + beet-specific config + linters?
* How do you run the test suite?
* If relevant, what overall long-term thing would you like to see improve overall, not necessarily source-code related (Docs, wiki, tests, comments, cross platform issues, ...)? (The prototype answer would be like "Even if you're not comfortable with the codebase, any improvement of aspect *X* is always appreciated! Here's what we're looking for and how to jumpstart your effort.)
* If relevant, what feature would you like to see implemented, what is your long time unicorn?
* If relevant, is there some code/feature you (or someone else!) wrote/implemented you'd want to showcase?
* Is there a lesser known aspect of beets you'd like to go over?

This is very much still open to discussion, and I thank you for reading up to here! Here are the key issues I identified:
* Place in the beets universe (blog, doc, github wiki, twitter, ...).
* How to keep it a regular thing when the usual suspects have done their segment (If *you* are interested of course!).
* Where would the original come from? (Template to fill in the wiki? Twitter? Mailing list? PR?, the goal would be for anyone to be able to contribute with a lower technological bar than for source PRs)
* How to handle repetition between issues.
* The whole "Meet a dev" format.
* This whole idea?

Feel free to discuss any aspect of this idea, your feedback is very welcome!! I would be very excited to discover how people around me are using beets in unsuspected ways.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are identified. Start by reviewing the proposed blog, wiki, and interview formats and clarifying the scope, publication location, contribution workflow, and first content; done would mean an agreed format and a clear way to publish submissions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
content, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.