Disambiguate technology stack and dependencies sections

[anselmbradford]

The Technology Stack and Dependencies sections overlap each other and it's not clear what should be included in one versus the other. Are there examples in the existing code base?
It seems helpful to have the dependencies section list the software that is then installed in Installation section that immediate follows it.

[jimmynotjim]

👍

[Scotchester]

👍 Bump.

To me, having both sections seems a bit too fiddly. Or, reading the description of "tech stack" in the template, I get a totally different understanding than what I assumed from just the heading of "tech stack".

Indicate the technological nature of the software, including primary programming language(s) and whether the software is intended as standalone or as a module in a framework or other ecosystem.

This feels more like something that should be part of the general intro/description of the project. The phrase "tech stack", on the other hand, says to me nearly the exact same thing as "dependencies".

[willbarton]

👍

I don't find "tech stack" particularly useful. If I'm browsing a project and reading its README, "Tech Stack" seems like the sort of section I would gloss over to get to the dependencies.

When encountering a new project on Github my personal thoughts are usually something along the lines of:

• What is it?
• How much does it depend on? (HUGE chains of dependencies cause me to hesitate due to potential level-of-effort.)
• What does it depend on? (What do I already have/am I already using? Do any of these conflict/overlap?)
• How do I install it? (Generic UNIXy instructions are good enough for me personally.)
• How do I use it? (Examples, people! EXAMPLES!)

That's why Dependencies, Installation, Examples, and some basic documentation or links to documentation are important, I think.

[Scotchester]

A realization I just had in the thread that precipitated this thread was: dependencies/tech stack for simply USING/running the software are different from the requirements/typical path for CONTRIBUTING to the software. This was the subconscious issue underlying my after-the-fact objection to mentioning OS X and Homebrew in the "tech stack" section of the cfgov-refresh README.

[virtix]

pr's are welcome