Friday, May 19. 2006Thursday, May 18. 2006Monday, May 15. 2006Thursday, May 11. 2006Codeine 1.0.1I release Codeine 1.0.1, my simple, (hopefully) usable video player.
I hope to release more frequently from now on. And also finally get Filelight 1.0 out. It’s nice to be releasing software on Linux again. I confess I was partially motivated by me going to Florence for the weekend. I’ve developed an odd fear of flying over the last year. I hated the idea of something happening to me and Codeine still being stuck at 1.0. Dedication eh? Full changelog at the kde-apps entry. Comments on Codeine, its design, etc. and requests for its future are welcome. On an unrelated note, watch this. I’m so getting a Wii when they come out! But I also want a PS3 for Heavenly Sword, but who will be able to afford a PS3? I spose I could move to a smaller place.. Thursday, May 11. 2006Codeine 1.0.1I release Codeine 1.0.1, my simple, (hopefully) usable video player.
I hope to release more frequently from now on. And also finally get Filelight 1.0 out. It’s nice to be releasing software on Linux again. I confess I was partially motivated by me going to Florence for the weekend. I’ve developed an odd fear of flying over the last year. I hated the idea of something happening to me and Codeine still being stuck at 1.0. Dedication eh? Full changelog at the kde-apps entry. Comments on Codeine, its design, etc. and requests for its future are welcome. On an unrelated note, watch this. I’m so getting a Wii when they come out! But I also want a PS3 for Heavenly Sword, but who will be able to afford a PS3? I spose I could move to a smaller place.. Thursday, May 11. 2006Backends, Phonon, GStreamer
Chris Schaller's (a gstreamer dev) blog, as pointed out by Aaron Seigo, does pretty much miss the point. KDE has already been down the road of hitching up to the one true media framework. GStreamer simply does not offer "a believable API/ABI stability guarantee that covers kde4's lifespan." And one can't really blame it, we can't even be sure how long KDE4 will last. And portablity as well - why wouldn't KDE use the available "advanced media frameworks on other platforms" (as Schaller puts it)?
So an abstract multimedia layer is just a technical necessity for a project like KDE. However some of the issues Schaller identified are in fact real issues, ones we've experienced developing amaroK. We have an abstract multimedia backend system. One thing we've discovered is that it is very important to make sure all engines are fully functional. A user can only use one engine at a time. So an engine that is less then functional is actually quite damaging to the application - Murphy's law dictates that distros will pick the least functional backend as the default. We've considered options such as notifying the user of features that their engine lacked. But ultimately whats the point of an incomplete or instable engine when a better one exists? So a few days ago, amaroK's gstreamer engine was turned off - the Xine and Helix backends are fine, there are several open bugs on it and it does not support streaming yet. Phonon should have a similar policy of not tolerating incomplete engines. So Schaller's points regarding the problems of having 5 different engines is one to be concerned about - however there is really no reason why Phonon has to have 5 engines and I hope it doesn't. Any additional released engine should have some justifaction (like the advanced features of NMM). Thursday, May 11. 2006XMMS vs. AmarokThursday, May 11. 2006XMMS vs. AmarokThursday, May 11. 2006Concluding the Delete Controversy?
I borrowed the delete dialog from JuK at the suggestion of a bugzilla comment.
 It also cleaned up the code a bit; previously it was respecting the setting from Konqueror which for some reason resulted in a lot of redundant Trash/Delete code. We're in a string freeze so it won't be in until 1.4.1. Wednesday, May 10. 2006To Europe
Got my e-ticket in the mail this morning: I'm going to Europe! First, flying into Amsterdam, where I will probably sleep all day and party all night. Not because I'm some sort of nocturnal party animal, but Europe is 7 hours ahead of Missouri so I don't have much choice. Last time I went to Europe (flew into Amsterdam that time as well) I got over my jet lag fairly quickly through the judicious use of naps; hopefully this time will be the same.
I just loved Amsterdam last time I was there, a big city with lots bike traffic instead of car or vespa. From there we go on south to the Multimedia Meeting. It will be great to finally see all these people I've known over IRC for >1 year in the flesh. I'm still in the midst of finals this week, next week I plan on preparing some ideas to bring to the meeting. This semester I had a Software Engineering class, some of it was academic silliness, but I think some of it might be useful to think about. Especially in light of how the latter stages of this 1.4 release has been marked by many regressions. I think some "system decomposition" is in-order (read: reorganize the source tree). Automatic regression testing would also be a useful tool. Sometimes I think a more formal decision making process would make sense, though this would be contrary to how amaroK has ever done things.  We do certainly need to gain some consensus on when would be the best time to start amaroK 2.0 development. Personally I'm in the "as soon as 1.4 is doing well" camp. From there Seb and I are going to tour around a bit. Seb wants to go to Belgium for some reason, but it is only like 10 minutes away from the MM meeting, so why not. Then I'm going to London; I've never been to England before so that should be fun. I will join Seb in thanking the folks at KDE.nl like Martijn Klingens and Adriaan de Groot for organizing the event, and of course, paying for my ticket.
Wednesday, May 10. 2006To EuropeGot my e-ticket in the mail this morning: I'm going to Europe! First, flying into Amsterdam, where I will probably sleep all day and party all night. Not because I'm some sort of nocturnal party animal, but Europe is 7 hours ahead of Missouri so I don't have much choice. Last time I went to Europe (flew into Amsterdam that time as well) I got over my jet lag fairly quickly through the judicious use of naps; hopefully this time will be the same. I just loved Amsterdam last time I was there, a big city with lots bike traffic instead of car or vespa. From there we go on south to the Multimedia Meeting. It will be great to finally see all these people I've known over IRC for >1 year in the flesh. I'm still in the midst of finals this week, next week I plan on preparing some ideas to bring to the meeting. This semester I had a Software Engineering class, some of it was academic silliness, but I think some of it might be useful to think about. Especially in light of how the latter stages of this 1.4 release has been marked by many regressions. I think some "system decomposition" is in-order (read: reorganize the source tree). Automatic regression testing would also be a useful tool. Sometimes I think a more formal decision making process would make sense, though this would be contrary to how amaroK has ever done things.  We do certainly need to gain some consensus on when would be the best time to start amaroK 2.0 development. Personally I'm in the "as soon as 1.4 is doing well" camp. From there Seb and I are going to tour around a bit. Seb wants to go to Belgium for some reason, but it is only like 10 minutes away from the MM meeting, so why not. Then I'm going to London; I've never been to England before so that should be fun. I will join Seb in thanking the folks at KDE.nl like Martijn Klingens and Adriaan de Groot for organizing the event, and of course, paying for my ticket. Wednesday, May 10. 2006Friday, May 5. 2006Wednesday, May 3. 2006Monday, May 1. 2006 |
Amarok LinksCalendarQuicksearchCategoriesSyndicate This BlogBlog AdministrationWe Listen To... Powered by
|
