Open Source project - Page 4

kefka_killer · 07-14-2004, 01:35 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by mobileh1

All I was suggesting was that open sourceing a project isnt always in the authors best interest.

True. However it is in the community as a whole's best interest. And the key is to remember that open source doesn't necessarily mean free(as in beer). Open source just means that the source code comes with the program, it allows users to tweak the program to suit their individual needs and takes the stress of fixing bugs and spreads it among the entire community of programers who use the program.

Quote: Originally Posted by mobileh1

you could go after Frodo and claim you 'owned' part of that product

As to the intellectual property issue of who owns contributed code, just put a clause saying any "officially contributed code" becomes the property of insert software company here. Any nonofficial code stays just that, unofficial third party snippets that the end user can decide to use or not. If the main designer wanted to give incentives to work on his project he could offer profit sharing to particularly helpful contributors. If people don't want to contibute their code for free, its not like they're being forced to write it, then their code doesn't make it into the next release and someone else will eventually write it.

frodobaggins · 07-14-2004, 06:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by jpelzer

I definitely don't want to get involved with this license debate, but I would like to say that it might be a good idea NOT to use VB as the basis for a collaborative project...

VB is easy to learn and good for quick development, but it is not well-suited for long-lasting or widely distributed work. The lack of interfaces is a glaring issue for team-development. The lack of namespaces is a big issue for an reasonably complex system. The lack of good exception handling is an issue for making a reliable, maintainable system.

You've lost your mind. There is absolutely nothing you can't do in VB. If it isn't possible in VB you just make wrappers in other languages and interface that.

heezer7 · 07-14-2004, 10:20 PM

Code:

doit(0, _, _, _) = [] 
doit(n, f, t, u) = doit(n - 1, f, u, t) ++ 
[(f, t)] ++ 
doit(n - 1, u, t, f) 
result(n) = doit(n, 1, 3, 2)

I would guess SML but i never saw "++" in it so i am not sure. I say that it is at least some related functional language.

jpelzer · 07-14-2004, 10:37 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by frodobaggins

You've lost your mind. There is absolutely nothing you can't do in VB. If it isn't possible in VB you just make wrappers in other languages and interface that.

Sorry Frodo, I definitely don't want to step on any VB toes here, especially yours... Seems like your stuff is especially well liked and supported. I wasn't saying that there was anything that VB especially COULDN'T do, or that VB apps can't be good... Just that it's not especially adept at doing certain things, team-based coding being one of them IMHO.

My statement was more about applicability than capability. I mean, you don't hear people arguing that we should be installing CRT's in our carputers rather than LCD's... A CRT can display all the same things an LCD can... But it's just not the right technology for the job.

And I'm not even saying that VB is specifically the wrong technology for the job, but I believe better ones exist... And if I'm the only one on the board that thinks that C# is the way to go, sobeit. You guys go write your stuff in VB, I'll still be able to use it as long as it is written modularly with reusability in mind. (Much as your FrodoPlayer is)

But looking at your FrodoPlayer source, can you honestly say that it lends itself well to a collaborative development model? I don't know for sure, but my guess based on seeing a lot of code by a lot of people in a lot of languages is no... That there are many tightly-coupled pieces that cause parts of the app to become brittle over time... And if it isn't, if you have magic fingers and have managed to write a non-trivial VB app that lends itself to having multiple hands in it at a later date without everyone stomping all over everyone else, well I salute you, and maybe you could send me your resume... If you can do that in an unstructured language like VB, you have talent, and I want to hire you. I'm not kidding!

Anyway, no hard feelings. Suggesting C# is actually a foreign concept to me, as I'm an enterprise developer by day... Bringing up .NET as a candidate for the enterprise is still laughable in the workplace, but it just seems like a good match for media integration.

Cheers

mobileh1 · 07-14-2004, 10:54 PM

Why did you discount java? I have actually been thinking about that for a while now?

Quote: Originally Posted by jpelzer

Sorry Frodo, I definitely don't want to step on any VB toes here, especially yours... Seems like your stuff is especially well liked and supported. I wasn't saying that there was anything that VB especially COULDN'T do, or that VB apps can't be good... Just that it's not especially adept at doing certain things, team-based coding being one of them IMHO.

My statement was more about applicability than capability. I mean, you don't hear people arguing that we should be installing CRT's in our carputers rather than LCD's... A CRT can display all the same things an LCD can... But it's just not the right technology for the job.

And I'm not even saying that VB is specifically the wrong technology for the job, but I believe better ones exist... And if I'm the only one on the board that thinks that C# is the way to go, sobeit. You guys go write your stuff in VB, I'll still be able to use it as long as it is written modularly with reusability in mind. (Much as your FrodoPlayer is)

But looking at your FrodoPlayer source, can you honestly say that it lends itself well to a collaborative development model? I don't know for sure, but my guess based on seeing a lot of code by a lot of people in a lot of languages is no... That there are many tightly-coupled pieces that cause parts of the app to become brittle over time... And if it isn't, if you have magic fingers and have managed to write a non-trivial VB app that lends itself to having multiple hands in it at a later date without everyone stomping all over everyone else, well I salute you, and maybe you could send me your resume... If you can do that in an unstructured language like VB, you have talent, and I want to hire you. I'm not kidding!

Anyway, no hard feelings. Suggesting C# is actually a foreign concept to me, as I'm an enterprise developer by day... Bringing up .NET as a candidate for the enterprise is still laughable in the workplace, but it just seems like a good match for media integration.

Cheers

deadweasel · 07-14-2004, 11:38 PM

You know what, there's a great idea here.
Why DON'T we find a way to implement a snippit database? I mean, how many people have asked about ways to do a specific task in VB, C++ etc? Heck, I know Frodo's saved my behind more than a few times when I hit a wall, but wouldn't it be nice for us to have something we could browse through, and find say, a VB snippit that shows how to interface with Winamp through the API, or how to code a playlist manager? The kinds of things that all of us have in our projects, but each in our own unique ways. This way, we would all still be able to maintain our own individuality in our projects, yet share ideas about how to do certain tasks within them. Theoretically, this would sort of standardize the common components of each of our projects, so that newbs and veterans alike could easily create something that simply kicks fifty forms of ***.

VB databases like VB-Explorer.com gave me some of the base ideas for my project, but wasn't too easy to use for carpc-specific coding tasks. I had to adapt other peoples' code for some common duty to the particular thing I wanted to do with ALEXIS. What if there were a database that shared code like that, but which contained code that did things specific to what we all do here anyhow?

Man, did I just say the same thing like three times just then? Too much Dew man, too much Dew...

jpelzer · 07-14-2004, 11:41 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by mobileh1

Why did you discount java? I have actually been thinking about that for a while now?

I'd love it if I thought I could do the app in Java... But I believe the extra work of writing native control code to have enough control over the system to compete with either VB or .NET really makes Java a tough sell.

There aren't a lot of bullet points for media-related things that Java does well. I mean, you can't even really make Java go full screen without a good deal of hardship. How about playing DVD's? Navigation? Both of those could be done by grabbing the win32 handles for the helper app's window, but you'd need custom code to allow JNI to hook in to do so (or so I believe)... And the biggest advantage, cross-platform (for those running Linux) isn't really there because all the hooks we'd have to write to make Java competitive with VB/C++/etc would have to be totally rewritten for another platform...

Just seems like a lot more work. I picked up a $10 O'Reilly pocket book that gave enough info about C# vs. Java that I'm able to code with some degree of competence in C# without much work. I hate how cobbled-together it is, but it does provide the power...

But if you know of packages that would provide the ability to embed arbitrary win32 apps inside a java app, do full-screen, etc... I'm all for Java. I love Java.

NoPistonPC · 07-15-2004, 12:43 AM

I'm with jpelzer 92% on this one.

Java is awesome for enterprise applications that deal mostly with data and business objects. It's not so great for interfacing with DirectShow, COM objects/DLLs, and the win32 API (well, not without work).

VB is great for rapid application development. When that application starts to grow large, it is hard to organize the code in a way that is easy to maintain and co-develop. The point made earlier about being able to make a wrapper for almost anything in VB is valid, but does not address the issues that arise when the VB code base becomes large and unmaintainable due to poor OO constructs in VB.

C# addresses both of these issues plus it's cross-platform. Yay! The only downside I can see is the need to run your app inside a virtual machine. Boo...

C++ is another possibilty that I like since it's clean and fast, although lacking some safety features of C#. Did I mention fast? (this is the 8%) It's more work, but it can also be used for cross-platform apps.

For me, its a toss up between C++ and C#.

mobileh1 · 07-15-2004, 12:52 AM

You wouldn't use java and DirectX (directly), you would use its own 3D/2D/Sound API's, however, I would agree, that WMP as a control does save you a lot of coding.

I am comfortable with most of the popular languages, and from what I have seen, I would agree that VB and c# are probably the best choices because of the rich class libraries. Aside from syntax, c# and VB are much the same, they are both providers of procedural logic and COM interfacing.

Quote: Originally Posted by NoPistonPC

I'm with jpelzer 92% on this one.

Java is awesome for enterprise applications that deal mostly with data and business objects. It's not so great for interfacing with DirectShow, COM objects/DLLs, and the win32 API (well, not without work).

VB is great for rapid application development. When that application starts to grow large, it is hard to organize the code in a way that is easy to maintain and co-develop. The point made earlier about being able to make a wrapper for almost anything in VB is valid, but does not address the issues that arise when the VB code base becomes large and unmaintainable due to poor OO constructs in VB.

C# addresses both of these issues plus it's cross-platform. Yay! The only downside I can see is the need to run your app inside a virtual machine. Boo...

C++ is another possibilty that I like since it's clean and fast, although lacking some safety features of C#. Did I mention fast? (this is the 8%) It's more work, but it can also be used for cross-platform apps.

For me, its a toss up between C++ and C#.

NoPistonPC · 07-15-2004, 12:53 AM

But you know, having said all that, I don't think a simple CarPC frontend is really going to end up being THAT big of a project that it can't be all done in VB. This is especially true if we all go and write COM objects to perform various functionality (in whatever language we like) that can be used from within the top-level VB program.

btw, mobileh1, java is still my favorite language.

frodobaggins · 07-15-2004, 01:10 AM

Java Sucks!

NoPistonPC · 07-15-2004, 01:21 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Java Sucks!

no wonder you drink so much coke!

jpelzer · 07-15-2004, 08:07 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Java Sucks!

Less filling!

mobileh1 · 07-15-2004, 09:49 AM

Why?

If you coded Java with the Eclipse IDE, you'ld feel a lot more at home...

Quote: Originally Posted by frodobaggins

Java Sucks!

Grayscale · 07-15-2004, 10:10 AM

Ok, so back to this open source DB. I am pretty darn good a PHP/MySQL if I do say so myself

. I could get us a site up that allows you to upload a zip file of whatever code you want, leave a description for it, language, etc...

Give me the information fields we will need:
Name
Descrition
Language
Version
Date

For the time being maybe there could be a thread where people just posted the stuff...or maybe just a thread would be good enough seeing as there is a search through thread feature