As we discuss the housekeeping rules (in a separate thread), let&#39;s also discuss the actual project scope on this thread.<div><br></div><div>Very few project ideas survive in their original form, most go thro&#39; an iterative refinement. The strength of an idea isn&#39;t in its immutability (&quot;unchangeable-ness&quot;), but rather in its ability to act as a good seed for the n-th generation ideas that actually get implemented.</div>

<div><br></div><div>From some of the responses to my earlier proposal for this project (originally an idea from my brother), quite a few other people had similar ideas. Let&#39;s decide which aspects of the various projects get implemented, why they should be implemented, and in what version(s).</div>

<div><br></div><div>I&#39;ll start by outlining my ideas and reasons; please add your ideas and let&#39;s come to a rough consensus fairly quickly. Feel free as well to constructively critique other people&#39;s ideas. This stage should act as a filter to isolate unworkable ideas, or ideas that really should be a separate project altogether.</div>

<div><br></div><div>Ok, here we go:</div><div><ul><li>find out the cheapest petrol prices closest to you</li></ul><ul><li>report/update the prices of a petrol station</li></ul><ul><li>to simplify the project:</li><ul><li>

restrict the petrol stations only to Nairobi (for version 1)</li></ul><ul><li>the only interface will be SMS (subsequent versions may include other interfaces: web, mobile apps, etc etc)</li><ul><li>pros: no one needs a smartphone, or data plan for this. Most ppl are already comfortable with SMSes.</li>

<li>cons: a lot of really snazzy, graphical features need a browser (or a capable smart/phone). But subsequent versions can include more advanced interfaces for phones that can support it.</li></ul><li>use twitter&#39;s already-existing interface to receive and send SMSes.</li>

<ul><li>pros: free, many good libraries exist, easy to quickly get started</li><li>cons: how many ppl in Nairobi use, or know about, twitter? How easy is it to quickly get a user sending/receiving messages on twitter via their phone?</li>

</ul></ul></ul><ul><li>to include as many people as possible:</li><ul><li>use SMS as the main interface</li><li>allow a very fluid submission/query syntax (e.g. allow SMS-isms, abbreviations, incorrect street names etc etc</li>

</ul></ul></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>There is a tension between making life simpler for the end-users (e.g. a forgiving language parser) and making life harder for the developers. It is easier, from a programming perspective, to only allow strict grammar in the SMSes sent, but that will likely make the application unusable for most people (imagine trying to query/submit petrol prices while driving, in perfect grammar!).</div>

<div><br></div><div>Whenever possible, I tend to prefer transferring complexity away from the end-user and towards the programmer. These are some of the trade-offs we will have to decide on.</div><div><br></div><div>Over to the community for a constructive back-and-forth...</div>

<div><br></div><div>Saidi</div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">