Allegro.cc - Online Community

Allegro.cc Forums » Allegro Development » Alllegro 4.2.0 beta 2 has been released!

This thread is locked; no one can reply to it. rss feed Print
Alllegro 4.2.0 beta 2 has been released!
tobing
Member #5,213
November 2004
avatar

I don't know what #allegro means, but I remember the debate. The point was, people not in the mailing list tend think that there's nothing going on wrt bugs, because they are in no way informed about bugs and any progress wrt corrections.

I'm not sure about this, but keeping people informed about bugs and their corrections in this forum seems to be a good idea, but discussing bugs here is not a good idea: discussions should be only in the mailing list.

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

Quote:

as discussed on #allegro, some folks dont think so

Hmm... yeah, I meant to log into #allegro again sometime...

A mailing list is definitely fine for doing development work. You don't want to have your primary development on an open forum such as this, because too many people will start to meddle in the discussion. It would be like trying to get work done while sitting in a busy cafe on thursday night. Ultimately, we need less talk and more code.
I've tried to keep track of patches and discussions on the forums here, and it is simply not convenient. I need to do extra steps to download patches, sift to a number of posts that sidetrack the main issue and I can't easily mark a message for closer inspection. With the mailinglist I can and everything is centralised.
For the forums, I already have a hard time keeping track of the things listed in this thread alone.

I've heard the argument that people don't know what's going on. Big deal. The general public doesn't need to know about every petty bug that gets fixed and every comma that gets changed in the docs. Changes are listed in the change logs and some problems and discussion is held here at the forums from time to time. Anyone who has a genuine interest in following the development process can read the mailinglist archives (which are public) or join the list itself. That said, it wouldn't hurt if someone posted regular summaries of what has been discussed on the mailinglist here, but that takes a fair amount of time.

Anyway, what I meant to say was that posting a bugreport on the mailinglist and then report the problem in two threads here is redundant. I understand why you would want to post the problem here and that's fine, but doing it twice is, as I said, redundant. It's fine if you just post on the mailinglist, I'm sure most of us see it at least as fast as a message on the forums.
Bugs don't get fixed faster if you whine harder. We do our best in the time we have.

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Quote:

Hmm... yeah, I meant to log into #allegro again sometime...

Maybe we could do something like a monthly IRC meeting, where the most important bugs and so on are discussed, and everyone can ask questions to the developers. But then.. there's hardly any need for it. Let's just keep #allegro as the place for things which are too off-topic even in Off-Topic :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
avatar

Quote:

A mailing list is definitely fine for doing development work. You don't want to have your primary development on an open forum such as this, because too many people will start to meddle in the discussion. It would be like trying to get work done while sitting in a busy cafe on thursday night. Ultimately, we need less talk and more code.

You could have a special forum where people need to sign up to post. I agree that having an open forum would just end up cluttering things, but having a small, out of the way mailing list is keeping away potential developers.. I would think even Windows developers since I doubt they'd be keen on such developmental methods (mailing lists). IMO, email isn't really the optimal solution anymore with the amount of spam and server issues that crop up. Not everyone wants their email box flooded (yeah, I know AD is rather low traffic, but AD isn't the only email people would get).

Quote:

I've tried to keep track of patches and discussions on the forums here, and it is simply not convenient. I need to do extra steps to download patches, sift to a number of posts that sidetrack the main issue and I can't easily mark a message for closer inspection.

That would depend on the forum in question, wouldn't it? Downloading patches isn't any harder, IMO.. here on Allegro.cc it only takes two clicks, while on things like phpBB it only takes one.

That said, however, I can understand that some of the current developers may not have time for checking forums over mailing lists. A solution is pretty simple though.. you can set up a forum to generate an email to AD when something's posted, and you could make emails posted to AD get posted into threads on a forum. From what I hear, such a thing is fairly easy to set up. The only problem is finding a suitable forum, and there may even be a potential place for that if "the powers that be" think it's a worthwhile idea.

--
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." -- Bruce Graham

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

I think the main reasons I prefer email is that I have everything organized and in one place, and that it's much easier to access. Opening a web-browser and getting to the allegro.cc mainpage, then the forums page, then the development forum, takes like half a minute, while clicking on an incoming email on the desktop notification area takes less than a second.

But that's just personal preference I guess. I like the idea of a mailinglist-forum gateway. I'm not even sure posting would need to be restricted.

Somethng like this would be somewhat problematic on the technical side though.. what should be done with the delayed and dropped mails of SF? Like, someone posts into the AD forum - should the post appear, or should it only appear once it actually was sent to AD (which may be anything from seconds to days later).

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
avatar

Quote:

Somethng like this would be somewhat problematic on the technical side though.. what should be done with the delayed and dropped mails of SF? Like, someone posts into the AD forum - should the post appear, or should it only appear once it actually was sent to AD (which may be anything from seconds to days later).

That's SF's fault and happens currently with entire email domains.. and another reason why it might be better to move away from mailing lists completely.

--
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." -- Bruce Graham

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Yeah, the instability of SF is a big annoyance of [AD]. In an ideal world, both could be combined.. the ease of use of of email, with the immediacy of forums. Hm.. something that would work would be POP3 access to the allegro development forum, so I could simply add it as another mail source in my MTA. And for posting, the mentioned email gateway. I think such a setup would be perfect :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

Quote:

IMO, email isn't really the optimal solution anymore with the amount of spam and server issues that crop up. Not everyone wants their email box flooded (yeah, I know AD is rather low traffic, but AD isn't the only email people would get).

I've filtered my AD email since I subscribed, so it doesn't all end up in my inbox. Seems to solve the mailbox flooding issue for me.

Quote:

Downloading patches isn't any harder, IMO.. here on Allegro.cc it only takes two clicks, while on things like phpBB it only takes one.

That's one extra click in a seperate browser window I need to close again afterwards though. That, and I have to download the patch and then open an editor to look at the patch before I try it because I can't view it inline.
I know, all that could be fixed in principle, but as it is right now I find patches posted on the forum very inconvenient to work with.

Quote:

A solution is pretty simple though.. you can set up a forum to generate an email to AD when something's posted

The SourceForge tracker already sortof does that... not that it works well, but at least there is something for this. I actually think we should encourage more people to use it.

As for making a forum that doubles as a mailing list browser/archive where you can also post, it sounds like a great idea, but there should be a requirement to register; otherwise you will see the mailinglist become flooded. Someone would have to make this though.

Speaking for me personally, I don't want to move away from a mailinglist completely. The easy way in which I can store or order messages or place marks by them is very important for me, as is the routine of checking the mailinglist along with my mail. I would not read it as thoroughly if it were forum based. In fact, I'd probably find that keeping up to date is too much trouble for me.

Although SourceForge's mailinglist service is (too) often a royal pain in the behind now and then with its insane delays, it mostly works well, at least in my opinion.

Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
avatar

Quote:

I've filtered my AD email since I subscribed, so it doesn't all end up in my inbox. Seems to solve the mailbox flooding issue for me.

Not everyone knows and can be bothered to set up a proper filter. It actually took me a while to set up a filter that properly catches only [AD] email. Some people are stuck with webmail access.

Quote:

That's one extra click in a seperate browser window I need to close again afterwards though. That, and I have to download the patch and then open an editor to look at the patch before I try it because I can't view it inline.

For me in Thunderbird, not all of them come through inline. And the fact that some of them do come through inline has sorta made me lazy to not downloading the ones that don't come through as inline. :P

Quote:

The SourceForge tracker already sortof does that... not that it works well, but at least there is something for this. I actually think we should encourage more people to use it.

If it's what I'm thinking it is, it's quite ugly, hard to follow, and completely unappealing. Why would someone want to use that if you can barely read and follow it? Forum software (even phpBB's default theme shudders) is much better suited.

--
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." -- Bruce Graham

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

Quote:

Hm.. something that would work would be POP3 access to the allegro development forum, so I could simply add it as another mail source in my MTA.

Elias, why don't you suscribe yourself to the forum feedback? Right now it updates everytime anybody writes anything ain any of the threads... maybe Matthew can create a special feedback for the Allegro Development forum. It is not POP3, but almost as good :)

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

I just added it to my rss2email list, but I think it will be too much mails.. but yes, maybe if there's a way to select the forums it contains..

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

It has the same information the Recent Thread list shows. Will suggest Matthew now, just in case he misses this thread.

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Hm, my inbox has almost 50 mails now, and still downloading :P I got an email for every posting since I added it yesterday (only, the RSS doesn't have the actual message + attachements - so isn't really much more useful than opening the forum manually and scanning the yellow bulbs). Removed it again :)

[Edit:] Hm, just noticed a symbol "RSS feed" besides some threads (not sure what it does, maybe just never noticed it before).. and Matthew told me there's already some sort of forum-mailing in the works.

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

Quote:

Not everyone knows and can be bothered to set up a proper filter. It actually took me a while to set up a filter that properly catches only [AD] email. Some people are stuck with webmail access.

I think I filter either on the [AD] string in the subject, or the mailinglist sender ID, both in KMail and GMail.
Anyway, what this will boil down to is that some people prefer a forum because they don't sort or tag their email anyway, while other people prefer email because they do (and, as I said, I find email easier to search through: it's rather harder to keep track of a discussion and posted patches on these messageboards than it is on the mailinglist).
In such a case, I'd vote to keep the status quo rather than invest a lot of time and effort into switching to something else. But as I said, a forum frontend to the mailinglist could work.

Quote:

For me in Thunderbird, not all of them come through inline.

Most don't come for me either, but in that case it's simply a matter of clicking the attachment, which opens an editor with the patch. This as opposed to (the current way of) clicking the download link, clicking a button in a new browser window, safe the attachment, close browser window, open editor, open file.

Quote:

If it's what I'm thinking it is, it's quite ugly, hard to follow, and completely unappealing.

Sounds about right. ;)
This is what it's intended to do though... it's a shame we can't customise the sourceforge page for that, otherwise it would be ideal...

Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
avatar

Quote:

This as opposed to (the current way of) clicking the download link, clicking a button in a new browser window, safe the attachment, close browser window, open editor, open file.

Just set it to always open the file type with the selected application, without asking. On something like phpBB or somewhere else that offers one-click-to-download links, it's exactly the same as in Thunderbird. With something like a.cc, it's a little different because it's a button instead of a link (which I find myself not liking from time to time), but I wouldn't imagine we'd use a.cc as-is.

--
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." -- Bruce Graham

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Quote:

Just set it to always open the file type with the selected application, without asking.

Displaying it inline (as e.g. Evolution does) still beats that, since there's no application to open at all.

Quote:

In such a case, I'd vote to keep the status quo rather than invest a lot of time and effort into switching to something else.

Hm, yes, I guess you're right. So, Matthew.. don't work on all that gateway or whatever stuff unless you want to :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

X-G
Member #856
December 2000
avatar

On the topic, I can only say that personally, the main reason why I am not contributing anything to Allegro's development is because I loathe mailing lists with a vengeance. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

--
Since 2008-Jun-18, democracy in Sweden is dead. | 悪霊退散!悪霊退散!怨霊、物の怪、困った時は ドーマン!セーマン!ドーマン!セーマン! 直ぐに呼びましょう陰陽師レッツゴー!

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Quote:

On the topic, I can only say that personally, the main reason why I am not contributing anything to Allegro's development is because I loathe mailing lists with a vengeance. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Well, that's why there are is this forum and the IRC channel, so someone who can only contribute if there are forums, as well as someone who can only contribute if there's an IRC channel, as well as someone who can only contribute when there's a mailing list.. we have something for everyone :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Richard Phipps
Member #1,632
November 2001
avatar

Please contribute if you have the time X-G. You have the skills to help with the development of Allegro.

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
avatar

I have three letters for you. WoW.

--
RB
光子「あたしただ…奪う側に回ろうと思っただけよ」
Mitsuko's last words, Battle Royale

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

Quote:

the main reason why I am not contributing anything to Allegro's development is because I loathe mailing lists with a vengeance. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

And I'm sure I'm not alone in prefering a mailing list.
Anyway, the mailinglist archive is public, though it could be improved, but you can still follow the discussion easily enough. Posting comments or suggestions here is ok, although such discussions do tend to get rather side-tracked easily. Posting patches here is fine too, although I find it generally harder to keep track of them than for the mailinglist.
If you have anything to contribute, especially on the Windows front, by all means share it!

Damn, now that I get the forum contents forwarded to my mailbox I'm actually annoyed that I need to open a webbrowser to post replies. :-X

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Quote:

Damn, now that I get the forum contents forwarded to my mailbox I'm actually annoyed that I need to open a webbrowser to post replies.

Heh, same here :)

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert

Kitty Cat
Member #2,815
October 2002
avatar

Quote:

Displaying it inline (as e.g. Evolution does) still beats that

And as noted above, displaying inline doesn't always work.

Elias said:
Quote:

In such a case, I'd vote to keep the status quo rather than invest a lot of time and effort into switching to something else.

Hm, yes, I guess you're right. So, Matthew.. don't work on all that gateway or whatever stuff unless you want to :)

The people who are interested in the forum<->mailing list gateway want to do this, but don't want to go against "the powers that be". I'm not really sure where you got that it was Matthew from..

Quote:

Well, that's why there are is this forum and the IRC channel

This forum, which Evert has admitted to having trouble following for patches and things. This forum is not set up for such things, so something better would be needed. And you do realize the state of the IRC channel don't you? :P Evert doesn't really go there, and even when you (Elias) and Peter do, it's not usually for too long. Not to mention, they're both under different nicks, so no one that isn't familiar with it would know it's you.

Quote:

On the topic, I can only say that personally, the main reason why I am not contributing anything to Allegro's development is because I loathe mailing lists with a vengeance. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

That seems to be the growing opinion lately. A shame that something better can't be found, since we could use more developers.. :-/

--
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer." -- Bruce Graham

Richard Phipps
Member #1,632
November 2001
avatar

Could you not put together a forum X-G? You already wrote the one for MonkeyBlah didn't you?

Elias
Member #358
May 2000

Quote:

This forum, which Evert has admitted to having trouble following for patches and things. This forum is not set up for such things, so something better would be needed.

Well, I'm not really sure what would be needed. Personally, the only problem I see with the mailing list is SF.. but anyway, I guess your criticism about this forum are just some details which could be improved, so tell your suggestions to Matthew :)

Quote:

And you do realize the state of the IRC channel don't you?

Yes.. I was just being sarcastic about X-G's claim that the mailing list would be the main reason to not submit code :P

Quote:

The people who are interested in the forum<->mailing list gateway want to do this, but don't want to go against "the powers that be". I'm not really sure where you got that it was Matthew from..

Well, he implemented an allegro-development -> email forwarder for us :) (unfortunately with no way to reply, so still have to open the browser to write this)

[Edit: hm, but with an email reply I couldn't have edit my grammar mistake.. OTOH, i would have saved time..]

--
"Either help out or stop whining" - Evert



Go to: