RE: Steem History: Steem Reborn
Steemit might do the majority of the coding, but they suck at leading the open source community in development
They actually don't need to lead the open-source community. If they had documentation explaining how the protocol was structured, documentation on the different components of the blockchain, and then documentation within those components explaining each one's design, ordinary developers could verify whether or not the code match the documentation and then use that as a reference to fix bugs or expand features. Given that the repository doesn't do this, the code is inaccessible to ordinary developers.
They're asking for extraordinary developers to work on a project that LOOKS on the surface to be mediocre in implementation and design because there is little external evidence (documentation) proving the greatness in the design.
If the company is doomed to go under, who cares about SMTs? Write documentation so others can pick off where you left off. Unless of course, you want to continue to pretend being open source project. You want developers, make development accessible and folks will contribute.
Well, it would be easier if there was at least better documentation...but it still requires developers to just jump in with both feet, without any of the standard things open source projects have. Basically they have to download the code themselves, decode it, make changes without any idea what people are currently working on other than things mentioned in blog updates. Though possibly there might be forks they could find on git that might give them some idea of things getting worked on.
Most projects, you can go to a page and get an idea of what needs help being worked on, and where to focus your efforts. Hopefully you get some documentation beyond just what's in the code.
There is none of the stuff normal open source projects have, other than the code. It's not just documentation. There is a complete failing on Steemit's part in regards to the open source half of Steem and Condenser. It matters more with Steem than Condenser of course.
If there was at least a bit of documentation, then perhaps coders could read a bit and jump into the code, but it's still pretty hard to jump into code. You never know where to start. It's like trying to read a book from pages scattered on the ground.