Now that I have more time to go through the Roadmap, I’ll give a more thought out and a bit more critical view on it:
The content
First, the prior announcement of “Beta release in March” had me expecting quite a bit more than “Early closed beta testing (CLI)”. That goal in itself is a healthy one I think, as it should be achievable. But anyway I feel that the previous talk of just “Beta” was overselling and this is now under delivering. It should always be the other way round. So, while signposts in the Roadmap are quite good in themselves, my initial feeling was disappointment. Same goes to having it Beta from October on: a good thing itself, but viewed against the previous talks, not so good.
I am happy about the scope of the Roadmap, having these partnerships, hackathons etc. in there, not just the technical milestones. Also the possibiltiy to start to earn quite early on is a great incentive to participate.
On page 3, is it really necessary to mention “unlike IPFS”? In my opinion it is better to just stick to what we do instead. No other projects should have a place in our roadmap. Comparison sheet would be nice to have, but maybe in the Primer, or some other place.
The aesthetics
The visual presentation is good looking and clear in generel, but at some places it is bit unfinished in my opinion:
Page 3: The bullet points should have more space between paragraphs
Page 3: Have to click a couple times extra to get to page 4.
Pages 6 and 7: The transition from 6 to 7 is moving the months down a bit and the upper edge behaves weirdly.
Pages 7 and 8: Two similar pages in a row.
Page 9: Unnecessarily small step for a page between 8 and 10.
After swallowing my disappointment, this still a very very good roadmap, more than I expected. My critique is here only to help to make it a tad more finished .
Wondering about the DNS thing in November/December. If it is scheduled so close after launch, why not include it from the beginning? So finish DNS first, then launch the network?
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it’s not strictly needed (!) i’d vote against anything standing in the way of earlier launch xD …
…except maybe for changing the immutable data space and node addresses from sha256 to sha512 … but then again … the sha512 immutable data might become an additional data type later on … just not sure about the node address stuff …
being limited to 256bit sounds to me a bit like the idea of ip4 addresses never running out … but i guess there will always be a way out at some point and a way to extend the address space when really needed
oh … uhm … i guess then please ignore my comment above … i was very sure i assessed 256bit as “somewhat imaginable a collision could happen” … no clue why …10 ^77 somehow is a pretty large number
Well done to the maidsafe team. This is all very exciting and unexpected. Wonderful to see such a well presented road map! Fingers crossed all goes according to plan. I hope to get involved in the beta as early as possible.
Hey Jim, I know you’re not necessarily looking for feedback, and I definitely don’t want to rain on the parade of this awesome communication piece from Maidsafe. I’m 100% rooting for you guys I think you’ve done an awesome job. I have a few thoughts / feedback on the Roadmap pages 1-4 :
Page 2
Providing a hyperlink to a definition of Stigmergy might benefit readers, especially those unfamiliar with the term, including myself. Since it might be new to many individuals, offering a brief explanation or reference can enhance clarity and accessibility. Without context, the use of the term might inadvertently appear pretentious, turning some readers off.
The term ‘technical distractions’ makes me think that the team have had a lack of focus which I know is not the case. A more suitable phrase to describe the exploratory and experimental nature of development could be “Technical Explorations” or “Technical Investigations.” These terms convey the idea that you were delving into various technical avenues to explore possibilities and find innovative solutions, rather than potentially implying a lack of focus.
Page 3
The phrase “everyone from the ground level upwards” doesn’t convey a clear meaning to me (maybe just me). I dont think it provides a useful technical or non-technical description of the concept you’re trying to communicate here. Perhaps consider rephrasing or providing additional context for better understanding.
Page 4
It might be more effective to flip the content on page 4 around. This adjustment is suggested because on Page 4, you mention “With the network’s key features built,” which logically should follow the reader’s understanding of what those features actually are…
Being fed one sentence at a time is not a format which I prefer.
It was not easy to understand how to proceed with this process by the way.
You could write something like “click to display next piece of information” on the first page.
Why sending questions to Discord by the way? Isn’t Discourse powerful enough for it?
As for roadmap itself, do I understand correctly, that project will transition from open tests (alpha?) to closed tests (beta)?
It looks suspicious for people, who were asserting project openness, to make such radical change.
Wondering about the DNS thing in November/December. If it is scheduled so close after launch, why not include it from the beginning? So finish DNS first, then launch the network?
