useless discussion on MinGW/MSVC & releasing apps

[S Page]

Saro Engels wrote:

>> Do we have a list of all these issues? I suspect I can find out some
>> things by simply building and trying a kde app, but having them written
>> down might be a good thing.
>>
>> Maybe we should ask for a bugzilla component for kde-win specific issues

Just have people enter and search for Operating System "MS-Windows". 
(10 bugs currently.)  Maybe there's an easy way to search for this, 
http://bugs.kde.org's "Searching" section isn't helpful.

> There is 
> http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Missing/features/functions/kdelibs
> already which is not to much yet. If you find something, please add it 
> below.

I wrote how to install with KDEwin-installer at 
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows/Installation , and in 
its Discussion/Talk page noted a lot of end-user issues.

> thinking about what you want to release.

Before you're ready for wider usage by experienced testers (like me), 
you need:
1.  A greatly expanded Status page or section so people don't waste time 
re-researching known problems.
2.  A crisp repeatable installation story.  Don't let more casual users 
play around with setting KDEDIRS (or not), manually running daemons and 
batch files (or not), fiddling with their path, copying things around. 
Give them ONE recipe so developers have a hope of reproducing problems.

Since I didn't have either of those, everything I found is merely 
interesting feedback that doesn't attain the status of bug reports.

Note I didn't say anything about the completeness or quality of 
KDE-Windows.  You could release code that, for example, puts up an empty 
window and half a menu bar before crashing and still get useful feedback 
so long as you also:

3.  Set clear expectations with a meaningful release name and short 
summary used consistently everywhere (note the KDE 4 "Release Candidate" 
whining on the Dot  ;-) ).

> Christian
> (who thinks about moving to kde/linux development)

I really appreciate this work.  It's hard!  You're working with a 
mountain of layered code that creates a powerful and elegant horse, 
while you need to build a motorcycle from it!

Thanks for all you do,
--
=S