Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I was not calling you pointless or -- Bog forbid -- dumb. Like yours, my remark was generic, but I admit that the use of "yours" instead of "one's", despite the clarification in brackets (which I actually put there to prevent the conundrum we're now in), was ill-chosen.

In my defense, since I allready labeled Zerojay a "commie leecher", calling him "dumb" in a subsequent post would have been an upward reclassification.

So, again: you're not stupid, my remark was not addressed at you and I am an idiot.

That's the best I've got.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Yeah, I'm not talking about the hardware drivers. You'll get no gripes from me about that. I'm specifically talking about the default applications on the device.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I have no idea. Where's the source code for the current plugins? Maybe we can go from there.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Understood. Even there, decisions were made based on expediency by and large. I won't say that was the sole motivation, or make excuses for it, but it is what it is. The good news is that work is being done to at least partially rectify that situation. Stay tuned. ;)

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Woo! Threadjack! The components are mentioned at Freedesktop.org, with links to the various plugins and their source listed as the first items. I believe Maemo only runs Gabble at the moment, though I believe the rtcomm beta implements Telepathy-SofiaSIP.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Texrat, I hope you are really not believing what you are saying. I do think you have done exactly to me what you accuse Karl of. You say that it is I who have done this. Obviously your right, you always are??

You say in your PM to me that I slammed you, seriously I stated nothing but what I believe to be is the truth. While I believe that you do exactly what you accuse Karl of. You however have an opinion that I am picking on you, because I once refered to you as male genitalia.

If you thought by offering me a stand for my n800, I would somehow change who I am or what annoys me, you would be wrong. I want Nokia to step up, if you want to send me a stand I can use it, and I offered to pay for it, if not no big deal.

Ah Yes, my insults and nastiness, calling you a pot, how f-ing rude... I am sorry for persecuting you

Perhaps if you had ignored my pot/kettle remark which has hurt you so desperately, I would not be responding to you.


Its amazing I dont seem to get into these stupid arguments with anyone but you, yet you seem to be getting into arguments with more than just me. Logic dictates you are the source of the problem, or perhaps we are all just picking on you.

:cool:

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Holy cow.

Seriously, please take advantage of the ignore feature. I am.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

:cool: I may not have been posting in this forum but I have been watching since it started. I was an avid zaurus user and poster but like Z's forum their is too much BI*#&ING by grown A## adults that makes people shy away from forums and code for themselves . It's okay to have gripes but a little appreciation is all the incentive some people need instead of the whining

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I don't see that as selfish. It is a personal machine, and obviously you are going to want to do your own thing. There is no point trying to do something you have no interest in, unless you are doing it for someone else as a favour (or for profit)

I have always found that except in really specific circumstances, most software is like that. I have applications that I have written on all platforms, in different languages. I have an application (Lines/LinesFG/Yagol) that I started as a sort of test of a new platform that I always write when going to a new platform. So far I have redone it in C, C++, Obj-C, Obj-C++, C# and Java on the PocketPC, Palm, Mac & TabletPC and am now set up for doing it on the 770!

Well, I am new to the platform but did wonder about that. With the presence menu on the left, I wanted to add newsgroups which I was currently using claws mail for, but there didn't seem a way. That seemed odd.

Now I look at your application, I can see that it would be! Is Canola anything to do with Nokia?

Well, I don't really know how nokia do things, as it is a new area for me other than a few java things on my N73, but maybe they don't actually *have* a game plan?!

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Just because I don't make my (upstream) contributions known here doesn't mean that I'm a commie leecher, but I'll file that one away in my scrapbook as that was probably one of the more original things I've been called. Congrats.

You can call what I said stupid if you please. That's fine. Someone that's motivated and passionate about something they are programming and working on are *always* going to put out something that's higher quality than someone that's just a paid code monkey and doesn't really care. Some of the more cynical of you might say or think that the default applications on the N800 (e-mail, rss) are shining examples of that (something I would disagree with).

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I'm a commie leecher dumb***** myself and I have no shame in admitting that.
The only thing I ever compiled for the N800 was the Einstein NewtonOS emulator.
And since I don't have a valid NewtonOS ROM I couldn't even run it!

And ArnimS's mad rapid compiling/porting binge to the N770/N800 make me look even dumber.
Stupid botched-up Scratchbox environment on my VMware Maemo image...

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Hey ArnimS, I guess you did prove everyone is dumber then you ;)

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

The way it was explained to me is that Canola is written by an R&D lab that is "sponsored" by Nokia for tax write-off reasons. Something like that anyway.

I don't think anyone but Canola's management knows what they hope to gain by making it closed source. While it's a nice app, it doesn't really innovate (so I doubt there is anything patentable). And I doubt it has much value as a paid app considering that it's being given away for free. And it doesn't provide any functionality that you can't get elsewhere. It's basically just a prettier version of the default media player + the nokia streaming UPnP app rolled into one. So if they're giving it away, why not make it free so that I wouldn't have had to write Kagu in the first place? eh?

Again, I don't get it. And I'll continue *****ing about it (and working on Kagu) until someone gives me a straight answer.

Frankly, I think someone needs to sit Canola's management down and explain open source to them. It sounds like they're operating out of corporate habit. Wake up. Canola was the perfect potential open source app that never became open source. And for no good reason. Shame.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Wait... aren't you more of a commie if you're stupid enough (trevarthan raises his hand) to contribute? Commies work for free. Capitalists get paid. Isn't that how it works?

I've always thought that Open Source is the only way that communism ever actually works in practice. The funny thing is that I'm not really sure *why* it works, and I'm a contributing developer.

I find it difficult to analyze what motivates me to code for free. I tell my friends that it's "like art". But I don't really believe that most of the time. I think it's a combination of selfishness "I need X feature", the desire to help others (i.e. "give back"), and the desire for recognition. Maybe that *is* art?

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I suppose you didn't notice the announcement that Canola's going full open source after it's done being rewritten in Python?

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Just to clarify (in general, as usual): "Commie leecher" does not refer to people who contribute to something for free; it does, however, refer to those who think everyone should be compelled to contribute for free. Which is, if you think about it, basically highway robbery.

Like taxes. <dons flameproof suit and ducks>

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Nope. Got a link? They've been saying they want to make it open source for a while, but it never happens.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

And there's the irony to the thread. If there's anyone who deserves accolades for his accomplishments (and obvious abilities) here it's Arnim. I am going to have to come up with something for him as a token reward...

Oh, and for the record: no one needs to explain open source to Marcello, or any of the maemo folks. They know. And a little detective work would reveal that to anyone involved in Linux coding.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I am :(

I stopped trying to live up to others expectations... no one is disappointed that way. :p

***

An active developer can create a nice revenue stream even from a small community such as ours. In my experience, you need a bit of up front sweat capital or equity, a web page with an active donations link, and the support of a forum such as this.
It will get the ball rolling and create incentive. If you do only a few things extremely well, word of mouth (posts) from happy users will take over from there.

Unfortunately, often is the case where a good idea is taken only 80 - 90% of the way and then orphaned....

There are quite a few "open source" orphans roaming around out there.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Very good points, YoDude.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Sorry for the silly thread title. :)

The truth of the matter is most of the stuff i've 'ported' is more-or-less a straight compile, I'm going to say something that the devs here already now.

I really just want to show tablet users who don't consider themselves "real programmers" how easy and fun it is to find a linux app they want / like, do a little research, build dependencies, tweak a couple things, and host a .deb of it.

This sort of activity should not be confused with the effort, dedication and talent it takes to write a real app (kagu/trevarthan) or do a real hildon port (Nethack, AD-770) or a real optimization (ssvb/mplayer).

Cheers!

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Arnim, it is your tireless efforts, regardless of scope, along with perpetual cheer that earn you an easy spot in the Tablet Coder's Hall of Fame. ;)

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I don't think you can really generalise that way. Someone who writes good code will write good code, and someone that does badly will write badly regardless of passion. Someone who is not paid is going to be more likely to complete something they want to make than something they don't, but if they are paid they don't have that problem.

People writing banking software, or satelite control code are very rarely passionate about it, but they have very strong methodologies and testing strategies that ensure that their code will be of a very high quality.

It won't generally be the best application, but it will fulfil the specs and be reliable.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Your work is much appreciated - and envied :)
In fact, for me, the HUGE effort to get up and running with development on the N800 is an absolute showstopper for me - and probably a big hindrance for many other devs, too.

Compare the current OS2007 development environments to the stuff available for Palm or Windows Mobile. It takes literally minutes to build a small GUI app using HB++ (Palm example) or the Compact Framework 2.0 with Visual Studio 2005 (Windows Mobile). Anybody can get up and running with a simple application in a matter of moments, and the IDE helps to concentrate on the specific functional content of the app, without much thought about the environment.

I admit that I don't have the smallest clue about Linux development, but still - the first steps were extremely painful: My experience is limited to download the Xubuntu VMware with the installed scratchbox and firing up the emulator. But what now? What language to develop in? What IDE to use? (and yes, I read the tutorials on maemo.org)

I suppose the easiest thing for me would be to start in Python - I will try to install/update the VMware machine with Python 2.5.
OTOH, I don't want "choice" right now - I simply need an easy way to start developping small to medium apps for the N800, to further my enthusiasm for the machine :-)

(don't want to sound harsh, just a bit frustrated about that (too) steep learning curve :D There are family fathers with young kids and few sparetime that would like to develop for the N800, without first investing weeks in getting up and running ...hehe)

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

Maybe they are planning on selling it on another platform. Although I can't imagine what platform they could sell it on. I have tried it and it doesn't really seem to work for me (it doesn't play my songs, but doesn't say why, doesn't find my iPhoto or iTunes libraries either)


So did you start Kagu before or after Canola?

I guess I am coming from a different place though, in that I don't see why something has to necessarily be open source. Sure it is one way of doing something but by keeping it closed gives them control over its development. Either way it is their thing.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I had the same problem. It is a bit of an uphill struggle (although setting up for 2007 is easier than setting up for 2006). However, it is doable.

One of the things microsoft gets right (and I don't think there is that much!), is making the setup for writing software on their machines trivially easy. Ok you still need to be able to write stuff, but it means there is more software made, and thus more good software. Also has the secondary effect of making less technical software that doesn't require you to have knowledge of linux to use - one of the most obvious things I have noticed since using the n770 is a lot of software expects you to understand linux, or have technical knowledge in the subject.

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

A true Python advocate would (probably convincingly) argue that the above is true no matter the person and no matter the platform involved. Considering your situation (similar to mine in some ways, except that I already had a background in the language) and the Maemo platform, it's a no-brainer that takes little arguing, because :

- there has been an almost-official (via INdT) Python package for the tablets since the days of ITOS2005 on the 770, and it has been maintained through all versions of OS and hardware (which, as some have noted, is quite an exception :-),

- contrary to many embedded python distributions it is not crippled but quite comprehensive, with several useful add-ons and "bindings" to the Hildon GUI API,

- it even gives you the choice between TWO GUI frameworks to build you apps with : pyGTK for classic, widget-based stuff, or PyGame for freestyle, console-like interfaces. You could even say there are three, because for simple apps with an even shorter learning curve there is also Gustavo Barbieri's Eagle, an abstraction layer over pyGTK that offers a simple and concise API.

- you don't even have to install a specific development environment (VMWare or other) to get started : you can just use your existing setup (like Win XP) with the corresponding Python/pyGTK/pyGame packages and code away. When you transfer your files over to the tablet they should run right away, with the GTK widgets automatically "Hildonized". Specific adjustments will mostly be related to the screen size.

The main drawback is the startup time of the python+pyGTK (or python+pygame) combo on small machines like the tablets. But of it's (just about) bearable on the 770, it should be OK on the N800...

Re: Is everybody dumber than me?
 

I know this, and I would do the same thing but for some odd reason my Scratchbox VMware image won't update/run right.

Now, shut yer pie hole and get to recompiling Mana World! ;)