summary of the aKademy meetings

[Allan Sandfeld Jensen]

On Monday 06 September 2004 11:43, Charles Samuels wrote:
> On Monday 2004 September 06 02:13 am, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> > Right now you can see kdemm as a showcase of different options, we would
> > like people to try it out, break it, come up with experience-based
> > recommendations for a default framework for KDE 4, rather than the
> > guesswork, drinking games and numerology we would have used to pick on at
> > aKademy.
>
> Wait, wait, wait, this is just for KDE 3.4?
>
Probably not in KDE 3.4 main, I would not mind it there, but there are several 
objections (like it is an experimental API until KDE 4.0 final), but people 
interested could apply it on KDE 3.4.

> My objections have all been shattered.  While at the same time I find it
> quite stupid to introduce *yet another* API just for 3.4. So under those
> conditions, I again don't see the point.
>
> So, to summarize:
>
> Advantages:
>  - A single API (like with KAudioPlayer which itself could be abstracted to
> do this anyway)
>
It introduces a few features as well, such as the desktop oriented mixer 
abstraction (imagine a kmix that actually makes sense). 
Btw, this _is_ the abstraction of KAudioPlayer..

>
> Now to explain why I like nmm.  When we do at last decide on the 3.4 we'll
> be looking at the following things:
> - api stability
>  It's likely the NMM team could be convinced to keep an ABI stable for the
> KDE project
> - functionality
>  their presentation had stuff that Works Right Now (And is both impressive
> and much more than we can do right now)
> - KDE similarity
>  It (more or less) uses KDE (Java)-style function names & it's C++.
>
All that and lack of use. I might be able to make mp3-decoding reliable with 
my experience from akodelib, but who is going to make it support all the 
broken MPEG-videos out there? I am just not entirely sure we can make NMM 
ready for KDE 4, and I think it is going to be us making it ready if we want 
it.

But as I said, I am hoping for NMM as default for KDE4 as well, but right now, 
I do not think is not there (and wont get anywhere without public cvs). And 
even if it is there for KDE4, there are going to be applications outside 
KDE-CVS, such as mplayer and xine, and people which would like to integrate 
them with KDE (kaffeine, kmplayer). Who is going to write the cool 
beating-mplayer-out-of-the-water mediaplayer for KDE4?
I think we need the ability to integrate with whatever is cool 15 months from 
now when we release KDE4.

Mvh.
`Allan