[haiku-development] Re: Voting aftermath

So let me make a couple of suggestions:
1) Considering the date - yeah - I misread freeze vs release, but the point is 
still the same. I think that the more important thing to do would be to pledge, 
informally, among the devs, not to change ANYTHING not directly related to a 
blocking bug. Just like the Linux folks (and, incidentally, most commercial 
devs) do. You ship Alpha 1, then open the gates SLIGHTLY - only fixing bugs in 
the Alpha, no new functionality. Probably not even upgrading libraries and 
packages, unless they fix a bug. Leave anything beyond that to after R1.

2) As far as Python, as an interpreted language, there is a very large chicken 
and egg issue. Python apps will never be easy for end users to use UNLESS 
python's runtime is distributed with the OS. You end up with all of that fun 
dependency garbage that other platforms have. One of the best parts of the BeOS 
experience is that you don't have to worry about runtime dependencies or 
versions of crap. 

Having said that, of course, it is also not realistic to include every runtime 
from every dynamic language in the world. Python, IMHO, is one of the nicest 
and one of the best supported, but on top of that, it is the only one with 
BeOS/Haiku bindings. 

I believe that having a second development environment for Haiku is a good 
thing. C++ is, honestly, too hard. Yes, I can do it as can a lot of other 
people, but it is really hard. I wouldn't try to develop Wonderbrush in Python, 
but a lot of applications could be written a lot faster and in less code in 
Python. Easier and less code means, I believe, more apps. And, unlike VB (for 
example), Python doesn't make you write bad code. Making those apps more easily 
deployable is a good thing. 

I will freely admit to being a Python fanboi. I really like the language. But 
if it were Ruby or some other language with the same sort of support that 
Bethon offers, I would adapt. I would like to see Python adopted. I would like 
to see some work done to reduce the footprint to the minimal size possible, 
possibly including using one of the variety of other Python implementations 
(TinyPy comes to mind).

Michael


-----Original Message-----
From: "Axel Dörfler" [axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Date: 09/26/2008 03:58
To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [haiku-development] Re: Voting aftermath

Nick <tonestone57@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> For Python, there were a few devs - bonefish, stippi, axeld, mmu_man,
> who did not
> vote, maybe because they were undecided?  I would say to skip Python 
> for Alpha 1. 
> Better to be discussed for later releases if people believe it will 
> be needed. 

I for one don't use Python, so I don't really care if it's included or 
not. But since it's already 13 MB packed, I would think we should 
better leave it out for the release.
In the starter documentation for the Alpha, we should just mention 
where to get it (ie. HaikuPorts).

Bye,
   Axel.

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