[Fwd: Re: Please take me to your leader]

Amilcar do Carmo Lucas amilcar at ida.ing.tu-bs.de
Thu Oct 2 19:29:05 UTC 2003


> There is no leader. But Caleb Tennis is the current "release coordinator"
>
So you ARE disorganised then ... it shows ... ;-)  Seriously, though
every boat should have a captain, especially in stormy waters.

> >They did not respond on KDevelop newsgroup because what
> >they said was too long and they did not want to get involved in
> >a lot of email discussion about it, but I think some of the
> >KDevelop 3 team should read it.
> >
> Then, please send it to kdevelop-devel at kdevelop.org
> This is the mailing list that all developers read. I for instance do not
> use forums or any other mailing list.
>
Well, they specifically asked NOT to get on kdevelop at kdevelop.org.
If kdevelop-devel at kdevelop.org is different, please feel free to
post there, or use that internal spot on www.kdevelop.org you
mentioned, where you put my review document.

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Here is some of what one guy had to say ...

"The sheer volume of
inquiries on the newsgroup documenting the difficulty of first time
users with this product means it is failing the initial user experience
test - "If you can't be productive with a tool 20 minutes after you
tore off the shrink wrap, without making any inquiries or reading the
documentation, return it and demand a full refund".  However, I'm not
sure I could support them from my own experience in extended
discussion. Given the complexities of installation on Linux, I'm not
sure the initial user experience is entirely under a product's control.
Relationship with the distros has a lot to do with it. Seamless
platform integration has been a pervasive problem I have encountered
with this tool since I first started using it with 2.0 and 2.1.

"By the way, I'm not so sure I'm a new kind of customer. While it is
true that a lot of the corporate interest in the open source systems
has been as an inexpensive substrate for running (overpriced) J2EE
technologies, the fact is that all of the Unix-culture systems have
historically had a better network stack than Windows, making them
appropriate to high-network-volume applications of all sorts. Most paid
software development is being poured directly or indirectly into
corporate infrastructure, and corporations are increasingly not
single-platform shops. This process has been going on for a few years
now.

"This tool has a lot of potential - more, I think, than most of the
other open source IDEs for Linux. Even though I am uncomfortable with
the dual nature of Qt, the fact that it is licensed for money on other
platforms, I stick with it. I am hoping KDevelop will overcome its
barriers to entry. I am hoping that the tools in the GNOME space will
eventually mature to the point that I can play as easily over in the
GNOME world as in the KDE world. I like plurality. Choices are good.
Both is better. You can never have too many tools."

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His original response to the review is rather long, but contains a lot
of interesting comments.  He has obviously had a lot of experience
with IDEs, so I thought what he had to say might be interesting to
the KDevelop 3 team.

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The other guy had less to say, but offered some sidelights on
other products, as well as Gideon:

"I have moved from using (Borland) Kylix to Gideon because
the Kylix database drivers are miserably flawed and it uses Qt 2.x
rather than 3.x.  But I do sorely miss the Kylix environment.  For most
of the project, I worked entirely in QtDesigner - great form creator but
I felt quite limited in what I could do.  Someone suggested Gideon and I
have just begun using it.  It could, indeed, use a little refinement! -"

And later he wrote:

"I am pretty new to the KDevelop list although I have been on the Qt
list for many months.  I have expressed both my admiration for Qt and my
preference for some of Kylix's features on the Qt list.  At the same
time, I do recognize that QtDesigner was never intended to be an IDE and
it does a reasonably good job (minus a few bugs) to do what it intends
to do -- be a form designer.

"I also recognize that it is a formidable task to integrate Designer
into KDevelop.  Gideon appears to be a major step forward in this area."

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I hope these comments are of some interest to the Gideon team, Amilcar

All the best, Ian W.







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