Swift Website Workgroup Meeting Notes - 25th October 2022

Swift Website Workgroup Updates
1

Sorry for the delay in the publishing of meeting notes. You should see them more often from now on!

Attendees:

Admin

  • Meeting notes
    • Reviewed pending notes together
    1. :a: @tomerd to publish notes from 20th September
    2. then :a: @0xTim to publish notes from 11th October
    3. then :a: @kaishin to clean up and publish meeting notes from 18th October (content improvements meeting)

Evolution Dashboard

  • @tomerd talked to the core team, and everyone is happy with moving it to Swift.org
  • @kaishin mentioned that there's one more thing left to fix regarding hard-coded Swift versions
  • @mishal_shah and @tomerd brought up that we can merge the PR as is and improve the hard-coded Swift versions in a separate PR instead
  • :a: @kaishin will finish this up and merge the PR
  • :a: @swift-website-workgroup to make sure that all URLs are updated to point to the new location on Swift.org
    • @tomerd mentioned that we maybe can setup a redirect on the old repo

Content Improvements

  • :a: @mishal_shah to continue working on getting a preview branch set up

Getting Started

  • We discussed meeting notes from last week's content improvements meeting
  • :a: @kaishin Implement layout & content template + empty destination pages if needed
  • We still need to create "hello, world" examples/pages for the different use cases to feature on Getting Started:
  • @alexandersandberg looked into existing Apple Developer resources that we could possibly link to instead of creating our own Apple Platforms page, but the best candidate is Learn, Build, and Innovate - Apple Developer which everyone agreed on is not perfect
  • :a: @James_Dempsey still working on a "Go Further" section for the Getting Started page and might have something to present in the next meeting
  • @tomerd mentioned that we need to find a way to publish and distribute these resources, e.g. a YAML file
  • @kaishin mentioned that we should define certain topics for the community resources, to make it easier to manage
  • @daveverwer mentioned that his https://iosdevdirectory.com is already split up into topics and that we maybe can use it to source content (e.g. for a community directory) as the data is open source
  • @kristina asked if the community resources section is for hosting technical content or also other
  • @tomerd mentioned that it's all about the community, not just technical content

Install and download pages

  • @tomerd and @mishal_shah will work on this together this week, and talk to the core team as well
    • The idea is to remove all redundant information: a very simple install page + a more advanced download page for those who want more, e.g. looking for specific signatures, docker images, want to compile from source, e.g.
    • @tomerd mentioned that there maybe should be different versions of the install page depending on use cases as well
  • @Paul_Hudson asked if we also should mention Swift Playgrounds and not only Xcode
  • @mishal_shah mentioned that the Swift Playgrounds app is not open source and not distributed from Swift.org, we maybe shouldn't mention it, but @tomerd brought up that this could also be a footnote

New Community Process

  • :a: @daveverwer will continue working on getting the new process to Swift.org and open a PR
  • We discussed whether to write a blog post about it. This will be discussed in the PR as it depends a bit on where this content will be located on Swift.org.

Other

  • :a: @mishal_shah to create PR to drop Ubuntu 16.04 and centOS 8 as it's dropped from Swift 5.7
4 Likes
2

I’m confused here… are these meeting notes actually for October several months ago or was this a typo and the OP meant for last month?? Also, if this is correct and it’s suppose to be for a meeting all the way back in October, why hasn’t the workgroup been posting its meeting notes for all meetings that took place in November, December, January, and February?

I hope this is not a trend, or even worse a decision made of no longer posting notes about meetings to the Swift Website Working Group, because as a open source project its important to be transparent / collaborative with the Swift Community and posting weekly and/or Monthly meeting notes from the Core Group is a HUGE part of that!

1 Like
3

@Dman28 These notes are indeed from late October. We only have 6 notes in queue waiting to be published as some meetings have been canceled or been very short without meaningful notes.

I appreciate you bringing this up as the workgroup shares your views on transparency and collaboration with the community. We have simply fallen behind due to not always making these a priority in the meeting agenda.

I will try to make sure that changes though, and that we publish the rest of the pending notes this week.

1 Like
4

Thanks Alexander for the honest response!! :+1:

I’m glad to hear that this is something that the SWWG is going to remedy. I apologize if I seemed a bit pushy but its important in an open source collaborative project of this stature (who has more then one or two active / core group members steering it) to post about progression and active discussions / decisions being made about the project, on at least a monthly schedule so interested parties/individuals (like myself) and/or collaborators, can participate and/or follow the progression of the project!!

Btw, if during a month the SWWG only has one or two meetings that last a short while and not much is discussed and/or has changed since the last meeting, its still important to note that and post about it to the forums. Most people understand that projects can have months where not much progress has been made due to the type of item/content is being worked on, the technical difficulty of said item/deliverable, etc. but its STILL important to note that and post about it so interested individuals and its collaborators, can track the progress and maybe even get involved in what is being worked on, if it is something they can contribute to.

Thanks again for your honest and timely response. And also I want to thank the core team members for all the work and future work that is being put into this project. Its looking like the new Swift.org website is shaping up to be an amazing one and can’t wait to see it in action!! :grinning::muscle:

Sincerely, D

2 Likes