[colug-432] Learn How To Scratch Your Own Itch

[jep200404 at columbus.rr.com]

On Wed, 11 May 2016 22:45:54 -0400, Jacob Ulrich <contact at peachchannel.lol> wrote:

> Could you hire a freelancer to complete it even if 
> it's a project you know nothing about?

Yes, with two conditions, one of which is likely easy:

    1. The license for the software permits it.
       So read the license.
       Open source licenses are friendly, so this is likely easy.

    2. You have enough money to interest a freelancer.

Unless you have some big pile of cash,
hiring somebody is probably not going to happen.

You have an itch. It's up to you to scratch it,
either by persuading someone else to do it,
or by doing it yourself. 

> What do you do if there was a project on GitHub that you were looking 
> forward to but it never got complete and the developer stopped 
> committing? 

Follow Rob Funk's advice.

> ... you don't know how to develop said project yourself. 

Rob Funk gave you a good answer which I paraphrase as follows.

    Learn how to do it yourself.

I reinforce that with the following.

Watch Angela Duckworth's presentation.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit

Read Eric Raymond's writings,
starting with "The Cathedral and The Bazaar".

There are _plenty_ of resources.

o   on the web
o   locally in person, there are many user group meetings
    some with hands-on help, such as 

    CohPy's Friday dojos (cohpy.org)
    Columbus Ruby Brigade's coding sessions
        (but maybe those don't happen anymore)
    maybe Len Jaffe's Code Jam Columbus
    mornings at Stauf's with Unix "greybeards"

To get good answers, consider following the advice in the links below.
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20090627155454/www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting.html