Introduction and a couple KDE quality comments/suggestions

[Carlos Leonhard Woelz]

On Wednesday 03 March 2004 15:59, Zac Hansen wrote:
> My name is Zac Hansen.  I'm an experienced UNIX/Linux software developer
> with some KDE experience, but I'm just trying to get back in the fold.
>
> My contributions to KDE include when you go into keyboard shortcuts, you
> can double click on the event you want to set a shortcut for and it pops up
> the shortcut window (you used to have to select the event then push the
> buttons at the bottom.  Also, I wrote the code for stealing shortcuts if
> you try and use an assigned shortcut elsewhere.. alt-tab for example.  It
> will come up and ask you if you want to reassign it to the current event.
> (I think that's my code?  patch was originally rejected, but now there's
> functionality exactly like what I wrote.. so I'm taking credit for it :)

I guess you are a valuable addition :)

> First, I think it would be nice to have a kde-quality chanel on irc
> (#kde-quality ?)  It would be a good place for developers to go if they
> have something they would like to see done.  They could post it to the
> mailing list and go to #kde-quality to see if there's anyone there to take
> it on.  It would also be a good place to interactively answer questions
> about what needs to be done.  Though if no one was going to hang out
> there, it would be worthless..

Yes, this is a good idea. But I can't use IRC most of the time (can't in my 
work and at home I use dial up). So I won't set it up. But maybe you or 
someone else volunteers.

> The second thing i that only half the problem with doing KDE development
> work is the learning curve on the technical aspect.  The other half of the
> problem is the learning curve on the organization of KDE.  Right now, even
> though I want to work on something, I don't know *what* to work on.  A
> concrete list of things that need to be done that are simple enough for me
> to do would be VERY helpful.  Possibly even some sort of 3-level
> organization scheme.. beginner, intermediate, and advanced or something.
> These would be relative to expected kde-quality skill levels and not
> related to full kde developer skill levels.   beginner would be something
> like "get this program, get this document, learn how to use this feature
> and write about it."  That would get someone all the way through getting
> unstable (or stable..), finding the document, learning a feature, possibly
> contacting the developer, and writing some docs.  Intermediate could be
> something having to do with a little more code or documenting a
> significant chunk of a program, while advanced would be full bug hunting
> or documentation of an abandoned or completely undocumented program.

Well, I try to do that in the quality site. For each section in the tasks 
page, I lists the tasks in difficulty order, and link all the needed guides 
for performing them:

http://quality.kde.org/develop/modules/

But for development tasks, maybe we can improve the developers wanted wiki 
page to include this info. You are welcome to do so if you want, as I can't 
judge, I am no programmer.

> I just really think it's important to have a up to date list of concrete
> examples of things that need to be done, especially for people just
> getting started.  KDE can be very intimidating.

Yes I agree. That's why we are here: to show that this is not that difficult.

Cheers,

Carlos Woelz