The Awesome Phenomenon 🕶️
The 'Awesome' brand has become one of the biggest household names in software without even being a company. As a developer, you've undoubtedly encountered it whether through the official Awesome repository, Font Awesome, or one of the countless Awesome-marked resources floating around GitHub and the wider web.
If you haven't heard about it,
Awesome is essentially a GitHub repository acting as a central hub that links to other carefully curated lists following a specific format. These lists link to cool opensource projects related to everything surrounding tech: programming languages, libraries, protocols, design, gaming, AI, and much more. It's become the go-to resource for developers searching for high-quality, community approved content.
Awesome gained serious momentum around 2014, with early repositories like Vinta Chen's "awesome-python" and Sindre Sorhus's central "awesome" list establishing what would become one of the greatest movements in the opensource community.
Today, both repos are well over 200k stars, making them among the most-starred repositories on GitHub. If you've built something awesome, the Awesome repo is where you'd showcase your creation.
However,
What about all of us with brilliant ideas for tools or features that don't exist yet? Where do we go?
A Creator's Dilemma 🪦
If you're anything like me, your mind is constantly occupied with new and sometimes crazy ideas. Days without thinking about new apps, features, or tools are a rare exception.
The problem I face is the impossibility of keeping up with my own thoughts and building everything myself. While the reasons for this may vary for others, for me, it's simply a lack of skills, time, and resources.
Questions I've been asking myself are: Where do I start? Who’s going to take my idea seriously? How can I quickly expose my idea to a lot of people to get help, validation, and hopefully, build it? This struggle has been a major personal frustration I've carried for the past decade in software, and I'm certain I am not the only one.
But these roadblocks have never stopped me from trying, and they shouldn't stop you either. So what's the solution?
Enter Wishlist 📜
Wishlist is The 'Pre-Awesome' version of the Awesome repo. This is a place to propose and share innovative tool and feature ideas that don't exist yet, but could be a gamechanger for developers, creators, and enthusiasts. If you've ever dreamed about opensource features or tools that could make life or work easier, this is where you can dream big and add your vision to a growing collection of possibilities.
From Wish to Awesome 💫
Wishlist offers a fresh approach to transforming ideas into reality. Rather than letting great concepts remain scattered across forums or locked in our heads, it provides a standardized platform for two main purposes: proposing entirely new tools that might not exist yet, and suggesting innovative features for existing projects.
The idea is simple:
Web → Scattered Wishes → Wishlist → Feature/Tool → Implementation → Awesome
RFC-Inspired Structure 🦋
What makes Wishlist particularly powerful is its RFC-inspired approach to structuring proposals. Similar to how many established projects manage their feature requests through Request for Comments (RFC) processes, Wishlist adopts a formalized approach to documenting and discussing ideas.
The key difference? Wishlist leverages both GitHub Repo's and Gists as the primary medium. Repo's for lists and Gists for wishes.
Gists, for example, are perfect for casting wishes because they're:
- Version-controlled
- Easily shareable with unique URLs
- Very lightweight and don't require full repository creation
- Allow for comments and community discussion encapsulated within wish proposals
This structure creates natural compatibility with projects that already implement RFC processes, making it easier to graduate a wish into a formal proposal for an existing project. The standardized format also ensures that all crucial aspects of an idea are thoroughly considered and documented.
Pretty awesome, right?
Explore Wishlist 🌟
Wishlist is a space where innovative ideas can take root before becoming reality, waiting for the right developers and resources to bring them to life!
So, if you:
- Got a groundbreaking idea that could revolutionize how developers work?
- Or thought of a feature that would make a platform even better
- Are looking to collaborate with like-minded people
- Are looking to fund your opensource project
- Want to contribute to meaningfull projects
- Or want to explore what others are dreaming up
Than, make sure to Star or Fork the Wishlist GitHub Repository
Happy Wishing! 📜✨
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