[haiku-development] Re: Haiku R1/alpha decisions

agreed.hence the need for something bootable.i mean devs need tools and apps as well, ya know.OOfice might be a stretch, but leave at least a C dev enviroment similar to lazarus or something.i dont do all of my work on the command-line, either.although the OS is in C [or some variant thereof], doesnt mean the apps have to be.look at python's ease of use and integration into ubuntu lately.people code differently.im just saying include the tools they need.
ZETA was a good demo.i think when it comes down to it, someone could make one for Haiku.I dont know if senryu will do that, as it uses R5 apps on Haiku, hence the buggy ness.I think a demo AND devel release would go a lot further.the demo doesnt have to be complete, either.take an R1 distro and jazz it up a little.after all, we are working on R5 compatibility after all...unless senryu is what you intended as a demo release.......then again that is a different group. 


Zenja Solaja wrote:


Morning.
Even though the Alpha is primarily intended for developers (and should probably be called Developer Alpha to avoid confusion), there will be a lot of hobbyists who will like to try Haiku after hearing about it in the press. Even if they're fortunate enough to have 100% supported hardware, they will stare at an empty desktop and say "OK, now what?" BeInc (may they rest in peace) used to provide 2 interesting links on the default desktop. One was a link to the user guide (even yellowTab did that). The other was an introduction page, which also contained links to where users can grab more software (BeBits, BeWare, and other at the time popular sites).
The user guide is actually an opportunity for non-developers. People will like to know how to mount their windows/linux partitions, how to kill a rogue application, how to change wallpaper, how to cut-copy-paste. This is different in Haiku compared to other OS's.
Considering that this is primarily a developer release, the pdf version of Programming the Be Operating System from Dan Sydow might be good. Some sample code can also make new developers welcome.
Essentially, when a user installs Haiku, you know that they're interested and willing to try new things. How do we get the audience past the "OK, now what" stage can be even more important than trying to get users to try Haiku in the first place.

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