[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] Status of Quanta and KDE 4
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2008-01-23 8:31:44
Message-ID: 200801230031.44316.sequitur () kde ! org
[Download RAW message or body]

On Monday 21 January 2008 12:17 pm, Mark Ziegler wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> can you please give a small overview about quanta (kwebdev) and its
> progress on the way to kde 4?

There isn't a lot of news at the moment or we would have posted it. Progress 
is being made, but it's a huge task. The KDevelop platform which Quanta will 
be based on appears to be in place, but note that KDevelop is also nowhere 
near ready for KDE 4. These are both large and complex applications, but they 
have several developers and we have Andras and not much else. Of course 
Andras is as good as any 10 developers some days. ;)
>
> Until today I don't get any packages for my opensuse 10.3 box.

Yeah? Did you get the full desktop and settings dialogs for KDE4 yet. Hey, I 
love KDE and I think KDE4 looks hot. Having said that, it's atypical that so 
much of KDE is not being delivered. I started using KDE at 1.1.2 and I don't 
remember KDE2 and KDE3 arriving like this. I'm sure it will be wonderful 
soon, but Andras is running it and lost a day fixing bugs in kdelibs. I don't 
think there is anything wrong with using a stable package that works great if 
the really shiny one may put your forehead through the screen until the kinks 
are out.

> Will it be ready for kde 4.1?

I hope so, but frankly I'm a lot more interested in developing a really great 
package that's more than just a quick and dirty port. We could have done that 
already, but then why upgrade? In fact you can run KDE3 apps just fine in 
KDE4. I think doing it right is more important than doing it just because. We 
are finally at the point we can look at more specific goals. KDE4 wasn't even 
stable a few short months ago... That means writing code can be walking up a 
hill made of sand. Developers burn out less when they don't have to cover the 
same ground so many times to get to where they are going.

> Or is opensuse not ready with packages?
> Will there be a kde 4 release of quanta?

Hah! When KDE3 was released Quanta had not been in development for a while. It 
was around 3.1 we ported and we joined the official KDE release packages and 
schedule at 3.1. Until then the concensus on the web gossip was we were dead. 
Quanta is now in it's 8th year and has one the last 3 LinuxQuestions.org 
members' choice awards. It will probably win again next month. Start the 
rumor. We're dead. Of course it won't matter because application develop is 
our passion and we use our own tools regularly... so we just tune out rumors 
of our death and wait for the praise. To quote Mark Twain, "Rumors of my 
death have been greatly exaggerated".
>
> Any information is appreciated!
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
And there you are. As it happens Andras has been burned out on months of less 
than gratifying struggle porting to KDE4 where he was walking up the sand 
hill. So for the last week he has been relaxing by helping me with Kommander. 
I will post on that here shortly, but if you're not familiar you would not 
recognize what Kommander is becoming. I had a wish list I thought would take 
several months, with the idea if we could just do some of it we could have a 
good interim tool while we looked for help to port it to KDE4. Andras did 
most of that list in a week and is finishing up this week, as well as adding 
some things I hadn't thought of and doing some things I thought would likely 
never happen. In short, what I was told was next to impossible he did in next 
to no time. I guess 5.5 years full time developing on KDE can make a good 
programmer into one who can part the Red Sea before breakfast without 
breaking a sweat.

I hope to be making a release of Kommander soon, and it is a great way to 
extend Quanta. In fact you can make Quanta into a whole new application using 
scripts, Kommander and some creativity. It's the most extensible tool I've 
even used. I'm betting you probably don't know half of what it does... 
nothing personal, but if you want something new look at project actions and 
Kommander...

We will be doing a fund raiser when we release Kommander shortly. It's 
important to note that Andras' situation is changing. Now Romainia is part of 
the EU. The economy has changed there, and I have been paying in dollars, 
which is losing to Euros at a depressing rate. He also has a child now. He 
needs a raise, and I doubt anyone besides me fully comprehends his value and 
ability. I refered to last week as the code storm. As fast as I could pull 
SVN, build on my dual AMD64 with 2 gigs RAM and test I was seeing another 
commit with new functionality I'd been wanting for years.

I know I recently posted asking for help here and got some, so I'm not going 
to make a big deal of it, but if you want to see something really exciting 
there is nothing like making sure Andras is well taken care of. He really is 
impossible to replace, without having several really skilled guys who work 
well together anyway.

I hope this helps answer your question.
-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
_______________________________________________
Quanta mailing list
Quanta@mail.kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/quanta
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]