Request for maintainer(s)

[adamghill]

After starting building django-unicorn in July 2020 and spending probably 3-4 years diligently adding features, fixing bugs, and driving the project forward, I have decided I need to officially look for other maintainers to help out with the project.

Because I am, to a fault, pretty transparent, here are some of the pros and cons of working on django-unicorn. 🦄

The good

• django-unicorn has over 2.5k stars on GitHub, so I'm pretty sure it is solving a pain point for Django developers.
• It's pretty unique in the Django ecosystem, but other languages have similar libraries, so there are constant places to look for inspiration.
• Pretty high test coverage, the use of Python types, etc.
• It is used in production by a number of companies AFAIK.

The bad

• It's complicated: there is both a custom JavaScript reactive library and Django back-end code.
• The backend in particular does some ✨ magic ✨ with undocumented Django APIs.
• Replicating user bugs can be a challenging experience.

The ugly

• Some features probably need a re-think, e.g. child components.
• Requiring a cache for components was useful, but probably not a great approach going forward.
• HTMX seems to have "won" for frontend libraries (that aren't React/Vue) in the Django ecosystem (no shade here -- I'm a fan of HTMX as well).

The future

Ideally, one (or more!) people would be interested in helping me work on django-unicorn going forward. I'm not sure I can commit to working on it forever, but I do pledge to help others ramp up, work through issues together, and help guide the project forward.

I do think there are lots of opportunities to improve the project (I have a list of pie-in-the-sky ideas if anyone is interested), but even if someone was willing to help triage and write tests for issues that would be a good start.

Why would you want to help?

A chance to work on a project that already has some traction, improve it, and help out the Django community to build cooler (read: more interactive) websites quicker.

I'd love to hear from you. Please DM on Mastodon (adamghill@indieweb.social) or in this discussion. Thank you!

[ryancheley]

@adamghill I also posted a discussion in Django Commons here to see if any of the members there are interested in becoming a maintainer

[adamghill]

Thank you! I wouldn't be opposed to moving django-unicorn into Django Commons either. That just seems like a separate conversation.

[ryancheley]

@adamghill if you're interested in moving it over to Django Commons you can open an issue here. Also, it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, we'd love to have you in Django Commons 😄

Also, not sure if you posted in the Djangonaut Space Discord server or not, but that might be a good place as well. If I recall correctly, django-unicorn was one of the projects that was worked on in Session 2 and there may be people over there that would be interested in it as well!

[adamghill]

Thanks @ryancheley! I opened an issue to transfer the repo to Django Commons. 👍

[smattymatty]

Hello @adamghill , I used to use Unicorn, it was one of the first libraries that got me into making cool front-end things because I was too stubborn to learn JavaScript. I have since moved onto HTMX because I find it simpler and everyone is using it, but honestly I miss parts of Unicorn and also have a sense of nostalgia for it, and I like what it does and how it does it.

https://mathewstorm.ca/ https://mathewstorm.ca/questions/ (questions is very WIP, only the two bottom rows of buttons works) https://django-spellbook.org/editor/

I am interested in helping you with this project, I'm well-versed in Django back-end code, and am grasping at JavaScript, I see this as a great opportunity to learn more about JavaScript and how you connect it with Django stuff. I can help with documentation for sure, and as I get more comfortable in the code base I can help with other issues.

I am well-versed in GIT and wrote this guide for people on another project I am a part of.

I honestly have a lot on my plate right now but I am interested in re-visiting Unicorn, exploring it's code base, and helping with issues on my spare time. If you could give me some resources to get started with, I can build my next prototype with django-unicorn as I learn more about its inner workings.

[adamghill]

Hey @smattymatty, I really appreciate the kind words about django-unicorn!

If you could give me some resources to get started with

I do have a (very) high-level overview of how all the pieces fit together at https://www.django-unicorn.com/docs/architecture/. However, I could put together something more detailed if that would be useful?

I honestly have a lot on my plate right now

I hear that! 😆

A few other thoughts if you have time and want to build a prototype with it:

• Triage the issues and PRs
• See where the documentation is confusing or unclear and we can update it
• Make a note of anything that doesn't work as expected and we can try to fix it
• Make small example components that could be added to https://www.django-unicorn.com/examples
• Improve the https://github.com/adamghill/django-unicorn-component template repo (better docs?)
• Add to https://github.com/adamghill/awesome-django-unicorn
• Make a YouTube/Twitch talking about django-unicorn