Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] outdated apps
From: Juan Linietsky (coding_AT_reduz.com.ar)
Date: Fri Mar 08 2002 - 19:57:38 EET
On Fri, 08 Mar 2002 11:11:48 -0500
Dave Phillips <dlphilp_AT_bright.net> wrote:
> Juan Linietsky wrote:
>
> > hey great job! thanks a lot for your effort!
>
> Thank you, Juan, I'm glad you enjoy the site.
>
> > As for, now, I think the following apps in the "MOD TRACKERS/PLAYERS" are discontinued, too oudated or too alpha to be useful, or
> > just plain useless because of being so outdated or never really worked... so i'll try to help with cleanup, maybe you can move
> > them to some "outdated/discontinued" section?
>
> I've completely revised that section, please take a look at it now.
>
It looks a lot better! thanks again
> My policy regarding dated apps is simple: if the page exists and the
> code can be downloaded then the link stays, regardless of age or even
> build-ability. My belief is that the code is the thing, and that someone
> someday might want to look at the code for their own purposes. OTOH,
> this policy leads to the need for some kind of rating or other user
> review. Ideally each app would have a "last updated" date, but my
> employer (i.e., me) does not pay me enough to do that work. :(
>
I understand, I wish i was paid with money for developing audio apps too :) Mantaining such a huge page has to be really hard.
What could be done, which i'd like to help, is to find people that would be interested in, at least, once per month, check the links of a section,
and comment you on broken one, discontinued apps, etc. I can check help with the trackers page, and maybe some other, which i have experience with.
My point wasnt about dated apps, which can of of course be useful, but about plain not working ones (projects that were announced before even being in a working stage or actually doing something), since they are useless for the user, and of a minimum interest to the coder, like sarah tracker, keg tracker, funktracker, maube, or insotracker, all discontinued and in general, never past the "has an intercace, loads the module and displays it, and that's all" stage.
If removing them is not possible, at least they could be put at the bottom under a "discontinued" title.
I'm not intending to be bold on this. Since I began using linux (several years ago), I was all expectant to see a working tracker for it (specially an IT clone), or at least even a working or usable one, I used to check these projects regulary for years, and saw them being discontinued one by one, it was really frustrating. When i then went to check the source, to see if i could contribute something, all I found was a minimum amount of code that just displayed a gui, and maybe went as far as loading a song. (not even a bit of sound code). At the end, I finally became tired of waiting, and quite pissed that so many people started projects, announced them as if they were fully working or at least usable, and they werent.
Finally, i decided to write cheesetracker, which i released only when it was usable, after two months of development on it.
That's why i think these dead apps should be tagged as such, since they are not of much use to the coder, and they have no use at all for the user.
> Btw, Juan: Cheesetracker segfaults immediately when I try to start it.
> It built without complaint, any suggestions for debugging ?
>
Ahh, that happened to me also some days ago when i tried to compile it with pgcc-2.95.2 (which btw, boosts the performance of the program amazingly). But i cant say if it's pgcc's fault, the compiler version
or something I did, so if you could tell me your compiler version it wold be very useful.
Thanks!
Juan Linietsky
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