thinking ahead to 4.5: features or polish?

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On November 4, 2009, you wrote:
> on the other hand there are spots that are too new, thus needing a big
>  amount of work, also feature wise, thinking about the netbook, of course,
>  where now a big amount of work has been put into having something
>  "shippable", but the work to do is still huge.

if we look at what plasma-netbook will be in 4.4, what can be done to the 
feature set as it will exist at that point to make it more reliable and more 
complete?

we could add a new kind of containment (multimedia, e.g.). my concern is that 
is exactly how it will go given how we've been working for the last 2 years.  
now, that leads to great things (just look at what we've done in the last 2 
years :), but it's also led to some parts of our existing working being 
"gappy" and "mushy" instead of complete and solid.

> or also the overview and the nepomuk integration (will they have a first
> shipped version for 4.4? i hope so?)

same as the netbook situation imho.

> * is a feature that can be considered vital for a decent user experience?
> (like completing missing parts of the netbook)

that's certainly part of polishing in my books, but we may need to define it a 
bit better, such as:

"any feature that is considered vital for the existing definition of the user 
experience"

> * is something that could be considered the completition of an already
>  present half baked feature?

that's absolutely polishing.

> * is the integration of a feature that was put in and still not really
>  used? (like using the new animation framework around, making components
>  nepomuk activity aware..)

absolutely.

> * is something pretty big but that can facilitate with the goals we have
>  for 4.5? (like rewriting large chunks of old crufty code into something a
>  bit smaller and nicer, thinking about the toolboxes for instance)

if it leads to something that is more solid, more consistent and/or more 
complete ... absolutely.

this is all about finishing well what we've already started in on. be it 
plasma-netbook or toolboxes. which implies avoiding new cool ideas that don't 
already exist in 4.4.

> To summarize, not being something with 0 features as if we were in string
> freeze for 6 months, but something that has a couple of new things with the
> focus on "remember that part you said it had great potentiality? ok, now it
> works"

agreed.

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

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Development Frameworks
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