From: Hendrik Lipka (hendrik.lipka_at_gmx.de)
Date: Thu Sep 09 2004 - 05:33:47 PDT
Wednesday, September 8, 2004, 9:59:48 PM, you wrote:
> The ONLY significant app that I'm aware of is still Escale. It was
> released before it was completely "done" (in terms of stability,
> synchronization capability via plug-ins, API interfaces, etc. as
> open-source with the intention that other developers would pick up and
> make it better. No-one did.
The problem with this is the limited size of the Newton community. You
would need to find from the maybe 2000 newton users around the world
somebody who
- knows C++
- has time to work on such a project
- and wants to contribute (instead of working on own projects)
- and for the DCL, he should speak french...
I think this limits the number of participants very much :(
> Part of the problem was the the DCL is an enormous system of code that
> is somewhat intimidating. There is no real manual or "tutorial code"
> that would show you how to program with it by degrees. I must admit I
When I worked a little bit with the DCL some time ago, Paul was really
helpful when questions arrived. But yes, it will take some time to
understand such a large project.
> Part of the problem, we think, is that people for the most part were
> expecting something that "just worked" - which Escale does sort of,
> although it crashes on me a lot and I haven't had time to investigate
> the code.
Yes, Newton (and Mac) users are used to see programs working. Maybe he
should make a Windows version - the users are much more willing to live
with non-working programs :)
It can be a PITA supporting a program which one has written more for
himself, in a known environment, which he knows how to use. releasing such
a program to the public, where every user has a different configuration,
can lead to many people complaining that it doesn't work. I have experinced
that when releasing PDFConv - because I don't own a Mac, I couldn't test it
there, and so all the problem with installing it there remain unsolved :(
hli
--
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sign complicated insurance forms hendrik.lipka_at_gmx.de
www.hendriklipka.de
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