[rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

OK, I know this is currently being discussed elsewhere and I'm not the 1st to mention this here on ITT, but:

To all of you who wrote or ported software: I adore your skills, I love you for giving me the software I need, I'm full of respect and admiration... But why do you hide your work from us, the users? Put it in "exras", for christ's sake!

It's bad enough when we have to add repository after repository to our lists for no reason, but what's totally unacceptabe is *debs floating around in the wild, on private websites à la "my work for the 770", listing filenames without explanations about compatibility with recent OS-versions or thelike.

Please!

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

I fully agree. I don't add other repositories to my ApplicationManager if not absolutely needed. The quality stuff should be in "extras". Stuff not ready for end-users yet, should be in "extras-devel".
And non-application stuff (libraries, etc.) should not be listed in ApplicationManager, i.e. they should not be of category "user".

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

Programmers vs. Developers. Both create applications, but Developers document them and release them properly.

(This is coming from an anal retentive DB prick who can't stand how SQL2005 was inbred with .NET because it resulted in tonnes of programmers (not developers) with little DB knowledge screwing up everything they touch.)

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

Heck, I don't care if you use my software or not. I wrote it for *me* and put it up on the web in case anyone else might want to use it. Until recently there wasn't a document on how to do it, and all the signing stuff looks like a needless PITA. It's a lot easier to maintain my own page.

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

Well, what I don't like is seeing so many items that are listed as language packs (for example gcompris has quite a view) or various themes and parts (irreco, OpenLeiroX, wesnoth). I think there should be a way to permanently exclude items from the appman. Having multiple respos allows me to exclude stuff that I don't want to see by simply not adding that repo.

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

:shudder: Talk about a bout of not-considering-the-consequences.

Good, we're agreed, I don't want to use your software and you don't care if I do.

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

I think actually what you are saying is "Make it easier for programmers to put things in extras". It's gotten both harder and easier to get packages into extras now. There is more documentation so it's easier. But, now there's an autobuilder you have to navigate. This should result in higher quality installs but it's an additional hoop that has be be jumped through.

Or what you might be saying is "Hey how can I help out?" Get involved, find your favorite program and contact the programmer. Offer to get it into the extras repository. It's a community effort for many programs. In my case, the thrill was writing my application, not packaging, adding icons, uploading, sign, etc. I would have jumped at the offer.

Frank

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

It's ironic. I have seen some developers programmers gripe about the slow adoption of the tablet, while their own work could help in that area. But the issues of fragmented repositories and missing libraries and other linux-type hurdles hurt mainstream adoption.

A linux-based platform CAN make the mainstream-- but it's gotta hide the hard stuff from average consumers who are, by and large, OS agnostic. So far I can't say this is the case with maemo (although, admittedly, that fact is not just due to developers).

As I've said before, maemo reminds me of the MS-DOS days. You could do all sorts of great things with DOS in the old days (and I did :D) but you had to know batch language, X86 registers, etc. Windows plastered over all that, and brought computing in general into the mainstream.

I don't think the OP meant to pick on the work of developers and neither do I. I think the point is it would be better for most if certain conventions were followed. I understand if someone like Gene doesn't care one way or the other, but I'm hoping that apathy is not the norm...

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

There you go.

Re: [rant] Developers, use ....in' "extras"!
 

I see the lowercase used most. :p