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Discussion on: We created the Crystal language, ask us anything!

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niko profile image
Niko 👩🏾‍💻

Could you tell me more about your community, your resources for it look incredibly robust. How did it grow in the many branches it is now ( reddit, chatroom, repo, etc) and how do you manage it? Also in hindsight how would you suggest a newbie go about creating a language and growing a community around a new lang go about it?

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mverzilli profile image
Martin Verzilli

Hey community, if you're reading this:

  1. You're awesome, thank you!
  2. Feel free to chime in.

Honestly, it just sort of happened. I think we never imagined Crystal would make it this far. It started as an experiment to see what compiled Ruby would look like. The next thing we knew there were a few people crazy enough to try it and report issues. One day someone posted it to Reddit and people got interested. Step by step.

From time to time someone from the community says "hey, it'd be cool to have X, would you mind if I do it?" and we're like "Yes, go for it!". Then if the thing picks up steam we link it from the official site. I think that happened with reddit, the chatroom, gitter, etc.

For example, recently a group of crystallers joined forces and created github.com/crystal-lang-tools to tackle all editor support projects under the same umbrella. They let us know and we transferred our Sublime plugin. That's great because we currently have more on our plates than we can manage!

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niko profile image
Niko 👩🏾‍💻

Thanks for sharing the organic nature of this sounds super fun. Would you say that Crystal is beginner friendly regarding Open Source Contributions?

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sdogruyol profile image
Serdar Dogruyol

It definitely is! We are a small yet really friendly community which is always open for everyone.

Please feel free to join our Gitter channel gitter.im/crystal-lang/crystal :)

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niko profile image
Niko 👩🏾‍💻

Thanks Serdar, will do. I've been looking for a friendly Open Source community to get involved with.

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sdogruyol profile image
Serdar Dogruyol

"a few people crazy enough" that makes big difference :)

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mortezakcode profile image
morteza jahangard

selamlar abi , abi senin haberin var mi bunlar ne zaman windows ichin bir shey'ler yapacaklar ? ya ELIXIR teamiyle koshushtuk bize buyuk destek oldular ve baazi ishlerimizi elixir'le yaptik amma bunlara ne kadar email falan atiyorum konushuyorum hich bir shey soylemiyorlar ve belli ki 2025 ancak bunlar windows ichin bir sheyler verir ! windows 10 da kullana bilmiyoruz ve bu beni childiriyor ! benim bildighim kadar sen KEMAL'i yazansin sende luft et bunlardan bir konush sor ne zaman bunlar windows ichin bir shey yapacak ?

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bcardiff profile image
Brian J. Cardiff

I don't think a single person could handle all the community channels and communications.

There are some of us (in the whole community) that are more skilled and eager to share, curate and prepare content.
For a management perspective he have some hooks into Slack to avoid constant querying all the channels. But that is the smallest part.

First we have a website, some docs people and read, then we added the mailing list as a way to users reach us and start conversating (besides from github). But then IRC emerged and @jhass created a service to cross post to Gitter. A Slack was also created, but IRC+Gitter worked better for here.

Some people like to spend and collaborate there a lot in the chat <3
I think that constant conversation & sharing in that channel is important to a community. Yet, is not always easy. Serdar and Matias do great job in the community nowadays #Kudos.

An online playground and a share code service (even a basic one) is agreat resource.

As with any open source project there is a challenge (and joy) in trusting people with who you will be able to delegate and even share resposibilities.

Tips: Start little by little. Do something is useful for you. Be patient.

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niko profile image
Niko 👩🏾‍💻

Thanks that's great advice!

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sdogruyol profile image
Serdar Dogruyol

Thank you Brian :) I'm just trying my best to share how awesome Crystal is with everyone!