Project management is exactly what it sounds like, it is how you manage the different aspects of your project.
However far more goes into it than most people expect, so I am going to share with you some techniques and tools to help you manage and develop your project.
Your repo is the most basic form of project management, but also one of the most important.
Things like good commit messages, keeping branches up to date, and tagging releases will make development much easier for you.
A common paradigm for development, and one that GitHub promotes.
The main project repository is "blessed" where each change needs to go through a pull request and be approved before being merged.
Each developer hacks on their own fork, allowing them to experiment freely and only pull in the good changes.
Having a clear channel of communication is an important aspect of a project. Being able to talk with other developers, as well as offer a place for users to ask questions can be critical.
Having a issue/bug tracker is important, especially as a project grows.
Knowing what needs to be done and who is working on it, as well as having a preserved log of discussion will help you not only as you develop, but can provide valuable answers for anyone who looks later.
Using kaban-style boards, such as Trello or GitHub Projects, is not for everyone, but can be very beneficial to some projects.
Being able to see at a glance the status of each issue and who needs help can be extremely useful to project leaders.
Having documentation is crucial to the long-term success of any project. Code comments, GitHub wikis, Markdown files, whatever method works best for you.
Every project should at least have some documentation such as an up-to-date readme file.
Setting goals is important for every project. You have to know what you're even trying to do with your project.
Having clear goals will help you progress faster, and checking them off is a very satisfying feeling.
New developers aren't going to know the exact set of steps required to build your project. Even if they're written down you can almost always simplify the process.
Build systems exist solely for this. Reducing that
long gcc ... command to a single make will speed up development
and help new members.
Continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) are more modern techniques, where each change is compiled and tested and then deployed.
This can speed up development immensely and pairs well with the blessed repository style, where each PR can be tested before it is merged.
When your project is finally ready to be released, it needs to be published somewhere. This varies depending on your project, but it is important to make sure that you release to in the right place and the right way.
A simple way to publish your project is to tag a release on GitHub.
This goes very well with the CI/CD workflow.
- Mailing lists
- Patch workflow
- Integrated bug-trackers (Fossil)
- BDFL
Comments? Complaints?