KDevelop Roadmap 2001

Wed Feb 28 10:23:26 UTC 2001

Hi there,

as already annouced, I'd like to assemble a "short" :-) Roadmap for
KDevelop for 2001. Waldo Bastian has set up release plans for the
upcoming next KDE releases which will be of importance, links given
below. This document is open for discussion but I think as we talked
about it lately (John, Sandy and I as well as I talked to Falk on IRC
about it) we will probably all agree. If that is done, this will be
posted to our user mailinglist and the kde-devel as well as
kde-core-devel mailinglist to keep all KDE developers informed.
(although I don't like it much that that keeps our competitor up to date
with our plans as well :-) but this can't be changed probably, they'll
get the info anyway sooner or later)

General Outline and current status
----------------------------------

The current status of the KDevelop project is that we finally finished
the KDE 1.x series last year in December with version 1.3, a major step
for us but for new users a bit of a pain because we couldn't provide a
native KDE 2.0 version. Besides the 1.x version series, the cvs version
in the HEAD branch showed a major rewrite due to new plugin concepts and
the new technologies KDE 2.0 offered. Logically, the HEAD version as a
rewrite will require the most work and the longest time to reach the
quality level and beyond of the 1.x series. While that is underway and
lacking a native KDE 2.0 version right now, we decided to port 1.3 over
to KDE 2.1 and at the same time agreed with the core KDE team to combine
further KDevelop releases with the KDE releases. This has worked out
with version 1.4 this week and we can now proudly state that KDE
together with KDevelop has a good chance to reach everyone having even
the slightest interest in code development. The next few month will show
that we will have a lot more applications for KDE as well as new
developers joining the KDE project.

Release Dates
--------------
The current outline of release dates can be found at
http://developer.kde.org for the upcoming KDE 2.1.1 release as well as
the KDE 2.2 release. The timeframe and branches:

KDE_2_1_BRANCH:
------------

 will be released as KDE 2.1.1, including KDevelop 1.4(.1)

(note: we still have to look if the current KDEVELOP_1_4 tag is
identical with the KDE_2_1_BRANCH tag contents. Please could someone
contact David Faure to tag the current state, so bugfixes can go into
that tag. Developers taking part here should checkout and commit to both
tags, KDEVELOP_1_4 and KDE_2_1_BRANCH in case the fixes can be applied
to the current 1.4 version without the changes planned to 1.4 on the
long run)

Monday, March 20th should be the last day for commits. March 21st
everything will be tagged KDE_2_1_1_RELEASE. Everything that is not in
until then, isn't in, packaging will begin immediately. 

KDEVELOP_1_4
------------

is our main branch for further improvements. This version will be
shipped with KDE 2.2, the KDevelop version will be 2.0. First Beta is
March 28, second April 30, tagging KDE_2_2_RELEASE will be May 28.
This is our main interest. Falk has already said he is willing to put
his QextMDI into it, so we will have a good solution and improvement for
2.0. If he needs help with coding we should get together and just do it,
so that this is definetly finished with the second beta. I myself will
work on the documentation in HEAD and after the MDI stuff is available
and working, I will need some help into making the doctree unfold
docbook-generated index.html files for the new manuals. Due to an almost
identical handling of KDevelop 2.0 and the HEAD version, the
documentation changes will affect both versions and we can ship 2.0 with
a docbook version. I will call for help if needed with the english
version while the documentation translators at KDE are advised to start
their translation of the Manual at least. The current translations and
linuxdoc generated sgml's will be removed as soon as I made sure that
the KDE_2_1_BRANCH tag is set so the 1.4.1 version ships with the same
documentation as now.

(confidential: A second possible addition that I would strongly urge to
put in place is the code-completion of kdestudio. The sourcecode is GPL
and there is anonymous cvs at theKompany to get it, analyze and put it
into KDevelop. A bad code-completion is better than no code-completion,
I think we agree on that)

Besides that, a new version of KOffice is set on the release schedule
for KDE 2.2. So I suggest someone (maybe Ian) will take care of
providing a KOffice template and put that in place ASAP.

HEAD
-----

The version in HEAD is going to be as follows: While Qt 3.0 has to be
expected in summer with some major changes to the API and KDE 3.0 will
be on the way after the 2.2 release, we will rename the HEAD version to
KDevelop 3.0. The main work should be taking place here with all new
developers approaching pointing to this tag and version. Surely after
the current 1.4 release there will be the one or the other asking if
he/she can help and that is definetly the place for specialists of all
kind of languages. The kdebindings stuff will have some opportunities to
create KDE applications with other languages and KDevelop is one good
candidate to do that.  The shipment of 3.0 is due to when it's to be
considered ready and stable, at least with the same qualities that 2.0
will have and above, together with an expected KDE 3.x release. Until
then the KDevelop 2.x versions will ship with KDE releases.

Good Luck and happy coding!

------------------------------------
END ROADMAP
____________________________________

Ok, finally some info that is for yourself about what is planned
generally this year for myself.
My exam period will be finished on March 30th, after that I will attend
the shows in Europe and especially Germany as last year for promotion
tour. I hope to meet the one or the other so we can have a coffee and a
good talk like last year with Bernd, Sandy, Walter and the others. This
won't leave much time during the summer for coding but I hope to get the
docs up to the current state of the art although I doubt it will be
consistent for long to keep up with the KDE and Qt changes and
possibilities; at least I want the manual to be precise and correct
*and* translated into other languages by the KDE translators.

My exam period will start again in July/August after the summer semester
and I have set myself a limit to work on KDevelop for that time until
October to get my main exams done and hopefully pass, so only the one or
the other show will be ok for me during that time, but as during the
last years you can expect to hear from me and take some of the
organizational work. 

Generally, I see the project in a good state, although it is very sad
that the original starters like the Stephans and Sandy have so litte
time as well as Bernd and Walter are a bit silent :) (hint: time to
speak up, guys :) let us at least know what's going on with you :-) New
developers are coming in and I think our friendly attitude is very
attracting. The strategy to bring us much closer to the KDE guys has
worked out I think and we should stick with that. I know a lot of them
personally and they are behind us in our dedication so we just have to
do our share and kdevelop is a self-runner. We're more or less one team
now because of the actual need, although the bindings have been a bit
loose during the initial years, but I think the political thinking of
the KDE developers has changed from the "I don't need an IDE for coding
myself" to "KDE needs an IDE to get new developers, so I will do my
share on promoting KDevelop".

I'm happy to be with you guys and you know it's always a pleasure to
work with you. Especially I liked the shift-work together with John and
Ian since December to get 1.4 working and out. 

Regards,

Ralf

-- 
Finally, even I have to admit that being myself was the best thing
that ever could have happened to me. - Le Grand Charmeur

**********************************
Ralf Nolden

The KDevelop Project
http://www.kdevelop.org

nolden at kde.org
rnolden at kdevelop.org
**********************************

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