Welcome to PirateLearner!
This blog post marks our setting sail into the internet as a functional, live project aimed at bringing the best learning from around the world in pithy, digestable, and clutterfree chunks that would help a growing community of passionate learners. By developing a collaborative platform, we plan to off load individual learners from the burden of sifting through the quagmire of information that the internet has become, effectively separating the kernels of knowledge from the chaff.
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
~ William Shedd
As of now, the vessel has just started to float and sail, but that shouldn't hinder us from starting to serve our objective and we've started to grind our noses in delivering good content along with developing the platform at the same time. This blog post is a declaration of our intention and also an appeal of outreach. This blog will serve as the team blog sharing information on the development status of various modules and other, related information.
You can read about our vision here. That is not all and we are in process of making our plans online since we have wholeheartedly accepted the 'Open-Source' model; but there is one point worthy of mention: A large bulk of open source projects are not 'newbie-friendly' especially for those who want to use these projects as a learning resource. The reason, usually is lack of documentation of the design and the constraints and reasons why those design decisions were made. While most of the now popular open source projects were created by either individuals or a closed group and they knew what they were doing, it isn't too exciting an opportunity for newcomers. Of our experience in the industria, we've come to understand that it does not serve the long term goal of being 'open' too well. Decisions, are a matter of context and context changes and if not documented, are likely to suffer the side-effect of becoming ill-competitive.
Since true learning is what we set as our objective, we're making our code available through github, and will try to document it extensively from not only the developer's perspective, but from a learner's point of view. We also intend to make detailed tutorials on how we made our project, revealing the mistakes (as silly as they are) which will not only augment the documentation but also be an example of the iterative process that software development is. By doing this, we hope, that we will be able to help people interested in learning this art, and that, few of you will want to contribute to our project by becoming a member.
A good design on paper is worthless if it stays in the laboratory.
It is a challenge we've set our for ourselves, to make designs that stand the test of time. That is another reason why they must lie in the public domain. At any point of time, should any detail or design decision befuddle you, feel free to shoot an email at captain(at)piratelearner.com. We will be happy to help. If you want to join in, you are welcome, but be very clear in stating the reasons, to yourself and to us.
