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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: KOffice 2.2, usability and the Q4 sprint
From:       Thomas Zander <zander () kde ! org>
Date:       2009-08-31 15:17:02
Message-ID: 200908311717.03200.zander () kde ! org
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On Monday 31. August 2009 16.07.39 ext Inge Wallin wrote:
> 1. We have already decided to use the next sprint for API discussions
> because we want to freeze our API's and make people create plugins outside
> the main source tree.
>
>  2. There was already a discussion about usability in an earlier sprint,
> and much of that is still to be implemented [1].
>
> For the first point, I would say that these are not mutually exclusive.
>  Some people are very interested in the details of the API, others are more
> interested in making KOffice a very good end user product.  Thus they can
> happen at the same time in parallel.

Sounds like we should make the next sprint a full week then.

>For the second point, I would say that that page addresses a lot of details,
>but there is nothing about the big picture.  I think we could benefit very
>much from working with Celeste.

Naturally we can benefit. Thats not a question.
What is important to recognize is that there is already a largely common 
vision that has in big part not been realized because of time constraints.
Now I know this is not something that is written down and I can't explain it 
easily to you on IRC.  But I strongly suspect that if you take 5 KOffice2 devs 
in a room and ask them for the global overview you will get 5 very similar 
sounding stories.

Where I see that work has to be done is not in need of a usability expert, but 
more in need of an interaction designer. Specific components that are known to 
be weak would be redesigned and the results implemented.
This can best be done in a team of at most 3 people and would just waste time 
(bikeshed etc) if there are are more people involved.

Now, the implication here is basically that there is a lot of work to be done. 
Work that can only be done by a developer. Work that has been known (see your 
links) for quite some time and not actually been prioritized as such.
I'm not sure how a sprint will help there.

On the other hand, I don't know how many people are actually interested in 
doing an API review.  I mean, everyone will agree its a good thing, but not 
every volunteer dev will want to spent their time on it.  So maybe we can just 
have 3 guys doing API review with some Trolls and then the rest will have to 
just accept any changes (but since it includes trolls, that should be a safe 
bet).

End result really is that a sprint as done previously typically gives us one 
and and a half days to be together.
Doing an API review as I see it being done here in Qt typically thats half a 
day for something as big as ItemviewsNG, which is only a fraction of the size 
of flake.
So, if we choose to do UI as well, we basically should accept not being able 
to tell 3rd parties they can use our flake/odf libs for 2.2

Unless we follow the plasma way of doing a sprint and get everyone hacking 
together for a week or so. 
-- 
Thomas Zander
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