kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Marq Schneider <queueram@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 14:43, Dick Hollenbeck <dick@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Any one had a chance to use "google wave" yet on a team project?
>
> I could see it possibly being useful for a blueprint's evolution.  You
> could park a link in the launchpad blueprint page, then do the actual
> team brainstorming in google wave.
>
> Hypothetically, this screams for a Kicad team "google apps" account.
> google wave is now available to all google apps accounts.  I don't know
> enough yet about whether you can put a wave somewhere else, seems it
> might soon be so.

Hi, list lurker here.

I've used Google Wave for a few group projects ranging from 3-6
people.  In my experience, it works well for:
 - Brainstorming
 - Initial project layout
 - Easily identifying changes to the wave that people made
 - Adding people mid-project

It didn't work well for things that will have many edits:
 - Long-term projects
 - Documentation
 - Changing your mind often

Once a 'wave' obtained so many edits (roughly 200+), it bogged down
even the fastest computers running the fastest browsers.  Also, the
Google Wave app 'crashed' often in the sense that it would give weird
error messages and ask you to refresh the page [0].

Overall, I found the justification for Google Wave to be an answer to
a question that was never asked.  For most things, email or Google
docs would have more than sufficed and you wouldn't have to log into a
different portal.

Also, the Google Wave change notifications are annoying.  It either
sent no email notification until 12 hours later, or they sent
notifications at every minor edit, including ones you made.

That said, I think really the only way to figure out if it might work
for what you have in mind is to try it out.  If it doesn't seem to
work, just be prepared to switch to some other function-overlapping
technology: email, Google Docs, wiki, SCM, etc.

-Marq

[0] http://www.onthetopofthewave.com/wp-content/2010/01/Wave-error.png