Hi Cedric, your enthusiasm is a beautiful sight. I find your perspective as a newcomer immensely interesting. Thank you very much for joining the discussion. :-)
> I'll now 'do my part' with Genode though: will open a > micro-blog in a few days about my technical forays into Genode, > my mistakes and misunderstandings and how I solve them.. So > that others will save time. Including some additional thoughts > on this email thread -- to help keep this message short(er than > a novel). Once I have more exciting news items in store, I'll > give my micro-blog wider circulation, on the haiku forums (they > don't have a gigantic readorship, but they are very > enthusiastic early-adopter types so likely worth the effort). > Waiting until I announce "our flagship app runs on Genode" will > carry more weight. That sounds fantastic. Just out of curiosity, how does the genodians.org idea that I mentioned in my reply to Guide resonate with you? > This might relate to a similar topic I have in mind these days: > if e.g. the genode team does not come up with an "official" > desktop but leaves it to the community to do (several) > implementations, we might end up with the fragmentation that is > prevalent in the Linux world: there are many "distros", which I > hear are more or less (sometimes "less") compatible with each > other. > > The way this decision making difficulty has always been > addressed in the Be/Haiku world is something like, "choose > reasonable defaults", "allow some (limited) easy > customisations", and "keep power-user customisation accessible > but under the hood". I agree that we should learn from the experience with the fragmented Linux world and the much more coherent Haiku world. We ultimately should strive for a agreed-upon official way. Right now, however, I feel that it's still too early to take informed decisions. So may we take 2019 as the year for desktop experimentation? > Concrete ideas for "spreading the word" on packages: > > The single biggest issue I have with the 'depot' system and > packages in Genode, is the lack of an introductory paragraph, > explaining what each package is about. Small potatoes, right? > Power users probably know software names by heart in their > sleep? But there are lots of intermediate-style users who > don't. It does make a difference. Thank you for making this point. > Regarding the need to "get the word out" re. the existence of > packages, and the fact that people's efforts tend to remain > below-the-radar: > > There should be a central depot manager, with a very easy way > to add third-party repos (depots). > > E.g. in the example I am familiar with, > https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/applications/haikudepot.html > one just has to invoke Tools > Manage Depots, add a new depot > URL, and you may immediately download (and run) whatever is in > that depot. > > Those URLs are not 'auto discovered' though, one still has to > read up about them e.g. in a discussion forum: someone would > announce "I've created my own depot with my own app builds, > here it is, use at your own risk". Then it's up to you to > copy-paste the depot's address in the depot manager. Either > that or, using a terminal, I'd type "pkgman add > http...some-repo-here", and pkgman downloads the metadata and > from now on "pkgman search foo" will return results also from > that newly added repo (depot). This is actually very similar to what I had in mind for Sculpt. > Qt seems to have become almost an industry standard.. But the > documentation alone is dozens of MB big; at least that's how > big it shows in the haiku depots here: > > [...] > > For that, and for other reasons I guess it will not be used by > Genode as its "native" API of course. Looking at the nitpicker > code seems to confirm that in spades. In my reply to Guido, I described my personal stance. In short, your impression is correct. > To my (biased) eyes, the Be/Haiku API (organized in "kits") > compares favorably to what I have seen in my coding life (incl. > Java: the JDK is so broad and powerful.. but also of a more > difficult access). There are some imperfections (BMessenger in > the app kit, some aspects of the InterfaceKit, the Media Kit) > that should obviously be fixed by whoever uses that API as > inspiration. But it could indeed provide some inspiration to > Genode. Developer should be able to tap classes like BButton, > BMenu, BListView, automatic font-sensitive layout and the like. > Modernized, cleaned up of deprecated calls, wrapped in > namespaces instead of polluting the top namespace of course. > Reading the source code of demo/scout and of sculpt/ I see lots > of familiar things (repaint() is what I call Invalidate(), > Window and NitPicker_Connection seem to be what I call a > BWindow ..etc) but there's a big gap to fill. > > [...] > > Anyway, work will start soon on 'porting' the kits to Genode.. Wow! That is intriguing. > Will do some micro-blogging about it, post screenshots (still > haven't found how to do a screen grab in Sculpt BTW.. now > realizing maybe this is un-implemented on purpose, as it poses > a security risk?) and the like, in case it's of value. Indeed. However, we have a rough plan to enable features like screenshots and screen recording. Maybe, these are worth considering for the road map? > - I've gone "cross platform", my apps can be compiled against both Haiku and > Genode with little if-def'ing, thanks to adding a > compatibility layer 'bridging' the userland API I'm used to and which (to me) > is close to perfection. > - The systems we are selling are running TT-CC on Genode, customers are happy. > - I've started using Genode for non-coding day to day tasks (reading the news > with arora? relaxing with Midwinter on dosbox ?). > - I've made some progress toward using Genode as a "self hosted" coding > system. > - I've convinced at least a few in the Haiku community to take a look at > Genode, and that working together could be a win-win rather > than a competition or a zero sum game. > - Tapping that "reservoir" of early adopter types proves to be a good idea, > bringing developer and user resources to built momentum (to > both OSes). > - I wrote some code and uploaded it to chiselapp.com (probably MIT-licensed) > that can be useful to others for day to day use of Genode > (lots of potential for writing apps, with the right SDK.. With the Be/Haiku > API I can build a skeleton app in a day; maybe others would > follow suit ..etc). That reads like a very exciting adventure. :-) Cheers Norman -- Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske Genode Labs https://www.genode-labs.com · https://genode.org Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth _______________________________________________ Genode users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.genode.org/listinfo/users
