Re: [NTLK] Newton Book or Newton Paperback, which is better

From: Nicolas Zinovieff (krugazor_at_free.fr)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 10:40:17 PDT


I'll jump on this one :)

On 22 Apr, 2004, at 19:18, Martin Joseph wrote:

> It (DCL) is extremely cryptic to me, and I expect many other people
> here, as to what or how I would use DCL(unless I started coding).

DCL is a framework, just like Cocoa or Carbon. So yes, DCL is roughly
"developers only".

> Does Escale use this technology? I thought so? Seems like many people
> use
> escale, or would like to if worked a little better...

Yes Escale is based on the DCL. The thing is people say "it doesn't
work" and bail out, or don't answer when we ask what to do next or how
to reproduce a bug (there are exceptions to this previous statement,
you know yourselves)...
This is a very frustrating way to develop a program.

Basically, from the start we asked ourselves the question: "Shall it be
free?"
- if the software is closed and shareware (let's say), then we have
some money to fund the project, and people who paid for the software
are the true target. I know that if I pay for a program that doesn't
work, I'll just make the developer's life a complete misery until the
software does what I want it to do.
- If the software is free and opensource, then we work on our own time
to improve stuff... But the good part is that it's available to anyone,
and everyone will hop onboard to provide help or information.

Well, we chose the second alternative and didn't get what we hoped for.
Are we ranting? not really, but since we are the only users who
actually take the time to report bugs and squash them, to ask for
features and use them, and to give time to the project and use its
results, we really feel we are only answerable to ourselves...

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that we are in the
process of releasing a new stable version of everything (see "Towards
DCL 1.1"), and to give you a couple of URLs:
- http://bugs.kallisys.com/ is the bug reporting engine we would like
everyone to use so that we can keep a written report somewhere of the
progress
- http://www.kallisys.com/files/newton/DCL/nightlies/ is where we put
every successful build (and logs of every build) based on the CVS
version.

And of course, thanks to everyone who gives us a hand, however little
help it is to make things goes _forward_. We work for you guys.

> Anyhow, it's always one of the conflicts of software development as to
> whether the rough product (which is usually adequate for the
> developers) is worth turning into something user friendly enough for us
> dumb end users...

There is no such thing as a dumb end user. There is the end user and
the casual user.
The casual user will glance, and give up. The end user will rant about
the somewhat limited capabilities (after thourough testing of course),
offer to translate or correct the translations, give a hand on graphics
or coding, or just send a 'thanks' note. That's what "opensource" and
"collective work" are all about.

-- 
Nicolas
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