TAIGA: Two questions

G

gtdstudente

Registered
Fellow GTDers,


1. Any GTD users herein that use Taiga as a digital GTD list manager?

Why if so?

Use to . . . found something better?


2. Taiga is said to be "Open Source" . . . does "Open Source," even in general, make it less likely for an "Open Source" Software Application to be abandoned/discontinued?

Thank you very much
 
1. No. This is the first time I have heard of it.

2. It very much depends. What open source really means is that the source code is available with a reasonably permissive licence. It means that you can make a change and publish a slightly different version of the application.

The hope for a lot of open source projects is to foster a community of volunteer maintainers, maybe with an income stream from providing some related service. The reality for most projects is that the original programmer is the only maintainer.

Just being open source does not tell you how long a project will be around. Things that might give you an indication are:
  • How widely used is the project.
  • How many developers regularly contribute.
  • Does the project seem inviting to people who want to contribute.
Just these things along do not tell you the whole story. SQLite, for example, does not allow outsiders to make code contributions, yet it is used on every Android device. I think that project is here to stay despite this.
 
That looks like too many options and too complex to implement and maintain for a trusted system. That is not what GTD is about (for me). You need to use the simplest system possible you can find; best is the paper system, but I prefer Nirvana as you can use it right out of the box if you understand GTD.
 
I've never used Taiga, but "agile" is a methodology professional project managers use. It requires them to have a certification because there's so much to it. I can tell just by looking at the website that you couldn't possibly dumb this app down enough to use it for GTD.

To amplify what @cfoley said, being opensource doesn't mean it's more or less likely to go away. I've seen commercial applications bite the dust, and opensource carry on and on.

I'm curious, though: what has you looking at this solution? Is there something about your current tool that isn't working for you? Or are you concerned for some reason your preferred tool could go away?
 
bcmyers2112 said:
I've never used Taiga, but "agile" is a methodology professional project managers use. It requires them to have a certification because there's so much to it. I can tell just by looking at the website that you couldn't possibly dumb this app down enough to use it for GTD.

To amplify what @cfoley said, being opensource doesn't mean it's more or less likely to go away. I've seen commercial applications bite the dust, and opensource carry on and on.

I'm curious, though: what has you looking at this solution? Is there something about your current tool that isn't working for you? Or are you concerned for some reason your preferred tool could go away?
Click to expand...
@bcmyers2112,

Thank you for your reply

Yes, digital systems going away is an uncontrollable concern and as such try to avoid the possibility as much as possible especially when it comes to personal information/infrastructure system(s)

Current tools of Paper and Google Docs / Sheets and Drive's for its 'filing' capabilities [Paper for sensitive information] have been performing sufficiently friction-less for Someday/Maybe's and Projects with their inherent Purposes through Areas-of-Focus and 'fluid' Contexts with as low of a Weekly Review maintenance as possible.

Only use Calendar with notifications since week seems to break into 'bilateral rhythms': Mondays-Thursdays and Fridays-Sundays includes digital Tickler therein which are on Docs and also use a tangible Tickler for 'Paper' and 3-D items

As such, was making sure I wasn't dismissing/overlooking anything that could potentially improve GTD system

Hopefully that makes at least some GTD sense

Thank you very much
 
gtdstudente said:
@bcmyers2112,

Thank you for your reply

Yes, digital systems going away is an uncontrollable concern and as such try to avoid the possibility as much as possible especially when it comes to personal information/infrastructure system(s)

Current tools of Paper and Google Docs / Sheets and Drive's for its 'filing' capabilities [Paper for sensitive information] have been performing sufficiently friction-less for Someday/Maybe's and Projects with their inherent Purposes through Areas-of-Focus and 'fluid' Contexts with as low of a Weekly Review maintenance as possible.

Only use Calendar with notifications since week seems to break into 'bilateral rhythms': Mondays-Thursdays and Fridays-Sundays includes digital Tickler therein which are on Docs and also use a tangible Tickler for 'Paper' and 3-D items

As such, was making sure I wasn't dismissing/overlooking anything that could potentially improve GTD system

Hopefully that makes at least some GTD sense

Thank you very much
Click to expand...
It makes total sense. Unfortunately, like I said, whether it's proprietary or opensource, there is no way to predict whether a particular tool will stand the test of time.

As for that being an "uncontrollable concern," I listened to a podcast at some point in the not-to-distant pass where someone (I don't remember who) described something that happened decades ago: he accidentally did something that wiped out all of David Allen's digital list data. DA may have been using a Palm Pilot at that point in time, I don't remember. Anyway, rather than blowing his stack, DA calmly took pen and paper and began doing a mindsweep to rebuild his system. The moral of this story is that if you have built GTD habits you trust, you can survive even a catastrophic and irretrievable loss of your lists.

I'm not recommending going without backups, mind you. A decent app should allow you to back up your data, but don't fool yourself into thinking it will be easy to import into another tool. Every time I've switched tools I've had to migrate my data manually.

This story, however, serves to me as a reminder that good GTD habits trump fancy tools every time. A carpenter lacking in skill can use the latest and greatest tools but will still achieve a substandard result. A master carpenter can use a cheap hammer and get the desired result every time.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
It makes total sense. Unfortunately, like I said, whether it's proprietary or opensource, there is no way to predict whether a particular tool will stand the test of time.

As for that being an "uncontrollable concern," I listened to a podcast at some point in the not-to-distant pass where someone (I don't remember who) described something that happened decades ago: he accidentally did something that wiped out all of David Allen's digital list data. DA may have been using a Palm Pilot at that point in time, I don't remember. Anyway, rather than blowing his stack, DA calmly took pen and paper and began doing a mindsweep to rebuild his system. The moral of this story is that if you have built GTD habits you trust, you can survive even a catastrophic and irretrievable loss of your lists.

I'm not recommending going without backups, mind you. A decent app should allow you to back up your data, but don't fool yourself into thinking it will be easy to import into another tool. Every time I've switched tools I've had to migrate my data manually.

This story, however, serves to me as a reminder that good GTD habits trump fancy tools every time. A carpenter lacking in skill can use the latest and greatest tools but will still achieve a substandard result. A master carpenter can use a cheap hammer and get the desired result every time.
Click to expand...
Very well said
 
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