Massive Konqueror Regression

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Sunday 14 August 2005 11:38, C. Michailidis wrote:
> My recent update to kde 3.4.2 was typical.  First of all, there is still
> some library that is included in more than one kde port.  I hate waiting an
> hour or more to build kde-base only to see that it tries to over write a
> file from kde-lib (or w/e, i can't quite remember the details now) and then
> have the upgrade back out.  Isn't modularity taught in first year
> curriculums anymore?

sounds like the BSD ports have problems.

> Next, I go to sync my visor w/ kpilot and I notice that Kpilot crashes
> every time I click on 'memos' or 'addresses'.  Kpilot sync's fine with the
> visor, but I can no longer view my memos... It's really aggravating.

backtraces?

> How about this... I can configure the panel to go on my left display, or my
> right display, or stretched across both displays, but I can't have it
> mirrored on every display!  How could no one have thought of that??  It's

because doing this would be a LOT of work (esp with regard to unique applets), 
used by a vanishingly small number of people and take up time i'd rather 
spend making things faster and less buggy.

> The list goes on... after an update to 3.4.1 I noticed that whenever I
> clicked on a link in an email from within Kontact, konqueror took
> fooooooreeeevvveeerrrr to load the page.  This problem 'magically' vanished
> after the last portupgrade I did.

i'm a bit lost here: in this case the last upgrade was a good thing?

> For those of you about to tell me that I should submit bug reports, you can
> forget it.  Maybe I'll submit a report, maybe I won't... the point is, a
> lot of bug reports COULD be submitted.

well, that's what this list (and the other kde *devel* lists) are all about.

> I'm pretty sure that when Mr. van Hoose says "KDE's development needs to be
> stopped" he means that at one point the kde code has to freeze and only
> accept bug fixes, not new features. 

which is a wonderfully quaint idea often posed by those who only have a view 
of things from the outside.

> I know that many 'larger' projects 
> tend to have multiple source code branches to work from.  Is there such a
> thing as this in kde-land? 

yes, of course there is.

creating a branch doesn't generate bug fixes, however. q/a testing and patches 
generate bug fixes.

> The reigns need to be pulled in a bit. 

so we pull in the reigns and i don't add "mirrored panels" support and then 
you complain that there isn't support for "mirrored panels". no, this doesn't 
work.

what does happen, however, is that we go and implement something (sometimes a 
feature, sometimes and optimization, sometimes a bug fix, sometimes a bit of 
each) ... this changes the application and it may now cause that app to fail 
in a particular configuration.

the kpilot author(s) don't have a wall with every possible device in every 
possible configuration on every possible OS with which to test every change. 
even if they did, they'd still need the time to do the testing. this is where 
you come in, and one of the purposes of this list, really: get to testing the 
software before it is released to help identify and target bugs.

sitting back and bitching about it results in zero beneficial change. zero. 
getting involved (which means more than subscribing to a mailing list) 
results in beneficial change, however.

> Some users 
> don't want to be guinea pigs for the latest and greatest stuff.  In fact,

then don't complain when your visor doesn't sync. this is how this process 
works.

> most users (especially corporate types) simply want a robust, refined, and
> highly usable solution without the bells, whistles, and eye-candy.  Maybe

i wish.

> I'm just not familiar enough with the release engineering process being
> used; Honestly, I don't even know of a stable/dev branch of kde, nor have I
> ever seen any beta vrs production releases of it.  Almost every

and yet you've said in this very email you are using it.

> Otherwise, I just may switch back to windowmaker ;-)

perhaps you should. i hear they have a great visor syncing program.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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