Stop reading. Go pull this post up on your mobile device. We'll wait.
Is the experience more enjoyable than you remember? These new mobile styles (*gestures encompassingly*) are courtesy Jason Huff. His April 27th pull request—a GitHub-centric way of submitting potential improvements to an open development project—was the first outside contribution to the site's code since we open-sourced earlier that same month. (If you still have display problems on your browser/device, create a new issue for us on Github).
Sending a pull request to a non-profit that I love. Check.
— Jason Huff (@jsnhff) April 27, 2014
Jason came to us a few months back with a request to fix our mobile experience. Using Chrome's web inspector, he discovered many improvements lying in wait. But it wasn't until we released our code on GitHub that Jason had a resistance-free workflow for bringing these efficiencies and fixes to all of our readers. Of course, in doing so, shit did hit the fan, dependencies failed to compile on Jason's computer, but eventually the process smoothed out.
"Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone." That's Eric S. Raymond in his often-referenced 1997 essay on Linux kernel development, The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Fast-forward a few years to 2017. The future web, rather than resembling an attention-fueled media circus, is a vast network of pluralistic, inbred Rhizome descendants called YARLs (Yet Another RhizomeLike). If you're just visiting, the cyberfeminist forks are not to be missed. Click here to fork Rhizome.
Back on Earth, Jason begins work on a mobile-friendly navbar.
If you'd like to assist in some way with collaborative development efforts, please email me or shout at us on social media. Rhizome's commitment to building software in-house has contributed to its success in myriad ways, and we recognize that these efforts are funded by your generous donations. Now the work has been done to open up this process to the internet under the GPLv3 license. Thanks Jason!
@jsnhff @michael_connor Such a big difference. I could submit some nav bar fixes later this week if you don't have anything in the pipeline.
— Sam Hart (@hxrts) April 28, 2014
