I started to learn Crystal a few weeks ago and after I encountered crystalshards.xyz which is just a thin layer over the GitHub API I thought I could build a web site providing a much wealthier resource for Crystal programmers. I set out to build the Crystal Mine.
Then two days ago I posted a link to it I found out that there is a web site called shardbox.org that already has most of what I planned to do and it also looks much better than what I could ever build.
I see it is listed on the community page, but I guess I missed it when I looked around.
I am not sure what I am going to do next. Shall I continue working on the Crystal Mine, after all it is a nice way to learn the language, Shall I try to contribute to shardbox?
In any case I wonder what other web sites are out there specifically for Crystal programmers that are not listed on the community page?
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You’re very welcome to contribute to shardbox. It’s been kind of sitting around for some time, waiting for new features ;) If you’re interested, I’m happy to guide you in.
Another similar/related project that just exists as an idea yet is Hosted documentation site
Contributing to either of the existing or planned projects is probably more useful to the community than launching a completely new one with a similar scope to what already exists.
I think the most relevant sites should be listed on the communit page.
Thanks for the offer. Would you have time to have a live pair programming session about the shardbox code? We could use that to have a video recording you explaining me how to set up the development environment and show me around the code.
Then we could add a feature or two.
e.g.
- An easy way to locate the shards that have incorrect Crystal version requirements.
- Locate shards that use non-standard strings for licenses or without licenses.
- Shards without a description in the shard.yml
- Create a page for contributors including all the contributors of all the shards (based on git commit)
- List all the require statements from the source code of the shards and make it easy to see which module is used where. Regardless of it coming from a shard or being distributed with Crystal.
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Yes, absolutely. I’m happy to talk about it and share ideas. A lot of what you mention here has already been on my wish list by the way.
I’m quite busy next week, but we can schedule a date for the week after, if that works for you.
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We should schedule something privately and then I can post it here in case others would like to join. I’ve sent you an email.
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We have scheduled a live session for June 23. If you are interested you are welcome to join us in the chat of our Zoom session.
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Interesting comment from @szabgab : Websites for programmers using Crystal - #3 by szabgab
I imagine you’re thinking that the following might be a good fit for a shard tool XYZ (or an ameba extension) with some sort of API output that can be ingested into the shard website):
- An easy way to locate the shards that have incorrect Crystal version requirements.
- Locate shards that use non-standard strings for licenses or without licenses.
- Shards without a description in the shard.yml
- Create a page for contributors including all the contributors of all the shards (based on git commit)
- List all the require statements from the source code of the shards and make it easy to see which module is used where. Regardless of it coming from a shard or being distributed with Crystal.
Sounds like it would be useful!
The zoom chat sounds interesting; unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend. But, please keep us posted. 
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That’s a good point. There’s definitely some overlap with New command: validate · Issue #29 · crystal-lang/shards · GitHub for example.
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We had the live session. You can find the recording here
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Thanks for doing these video sessions! I enjoyed it and hope our viewers find it interesting.
Btw. a result can be found here: allow the user to list all the shards with a given license by szabgab · Pull Request #9 · shardbox/shardbox-web · GitHub
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