elementary-dev-community team mailing list archive

[Darcy Brás da Silva <dardevelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry sending the message twice, I think I didn't set my email client to
assume elementary filter as mailing list
and thus was only replying to one individual.

On Tue, 2012-09-04 at 19:01 +0100, David Gomes wrote:
> Shipping more packages in my opinion is anti-developping philosophy.
To start, the idea behind this IS NOT to put into the _main release_ but
rather having a developer environment, something developers would use,
Not the everyday joe (unless he/she/it wanted to).

>  Each developer has his own preferred tools. Shipping more text
> editors, more libraries, etc is just more bloat in my opinion. Ubuntu
> and its derivatives have enough bloat already, since most of these
> distributions ship with more than 2000 packages. In my system I have
> around 1000 packages installed, but it came with around 600.
Who is talking about shipping more text editors ? The way I see it is
quite simple, ship a default bundle, possibly with notes, and core
libraries to develop elementary apps. Nobody is talking about making a
code factory.
Things like offline documentation available maybe even pdf's.
Even a collection of pre-set bookmarks would do a whole lot for someone
that wants to try fixing a bug but has little experience.
Makefile, Cmake, templates that are commented and explained, compiler
ready to use in the version elementary apps are using, alias set to
generate directory structured and so on.

> 
> 
> Besides, developers should face bugs. It's the best way we can know
> about them and fix them (see
> http://elementaryos.org/journal/eating-our-own-dog-food).
I agree with "eating-our-own-dog-food", however i think you are
misinterpreting what it _"really"_ means. 
My perspective of what it means goes more inline with, have elementary
installed on your "home" computer, and use in day to day tasks. That way
one can detect (pains, problems, bugs, that a regular user would
see/feel).

When developing what we want is maximum stability and minimum
interference, so we can accurately debug the software we are developing,
instead of being misguided because of bugs that we are unaware off,
because that actually delays the development speed, and hardens the
debugging process, not to mention that also hides bugs when
mistaken/confused by other source of errors.
> 
> If you want the libraries needed for developing our software, just use
> "sudo apt-get source", any developer should know how to get this kind
Yes any _developer_ ... Remind you that not everyone is already one,
there are quite a few that still want to become one.
>  of tools. Using bazaar to branch and build our tools from source is
> also something our developers must know how to do.
Version control systems tend to be a pain for new comers, and even for
some other experienced developers that don't use the one elementary
uses.
> 
> 
> This "iso" has no real advantages in my honest opinion.
> 
> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Darcy Brás da Silva
> <dardevelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>         Today while talking to some fine folks at #elementary-dev that
>         go by the
>         handles of
>         victored and voluntatefaber , I wondered if there was any iso
>         build
>         ready to start working/developing
>         for elementary.
>         Now what would be the advantages of having the extra work on
>         getting
>         this iso out.
>         
>         1) Errors and bugs can be very damaging to a development
>         environment,
>         which lead to a constant fight wen testing highly unstable
>         packages. This makes the developer hell much bigger since
>         everyone tends
>         to test and run this packages in a somewhat different
>         configuration.
>         In case of failure, the developer then needs re-set the
>         development
>         environment to a known stage. This can be very time consuming,
>         that could be in better use.
>         It would also reduce the potential hidden errors, and the
>         known phrase
>         "That's weird, It works in my machine".
>         
>         2) Individuals that want to start developing in/for elementary
>         could
>         start right away hacking their way in. And if for some reason
>         they mess
>         up big time,
>         guess what ? The iso is right there, re-install, start fresh.
>         
>         Now I am fully aware that maybe this would be a hard work, and
>         possibly
>         limiting to the fact that having everything shipped, would
>         mean larger
>         iso images
>         which then could be "bad" in terms of upload + updated state
>         of the iso.
>         So another idea to support this view would go towards a
>         "Elementary
>         Developer MetaPackage" that would take care of preparing a
>         nice
>         development environment.
>         
>         Please feel free to contact me, on any elementary subject.
>         I'll be glade
>         to reply as soon as I can.
>         
>         --
>         Darcy Brás da Silva <dardevelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>         
>         
>         
>         --
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> 
> 

-- 
Darcy Brás da Silva <dardevelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

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