[openbeos] Re: BeAPI++

linus@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I just thought I'd comment, since I'm one of the possible *recruits* 
> that you 
> are talkin of. I've been wanting to join this team for a couple of 
> months, or 
> just contribute to the BeOS community in some way.. like most people 
> participating here, I've been a BeOS fan since I discovered it (R4). 

Ahem, what exactly are you waiting for?

> This is what's been keepin me from contributing:
> 1. I want to know what parts are really needed.

Short story: everything that you find on your R5 installation CD.

> 2. For those parts, I'd like a little introduction.. I've learned the 
> fundamentals 
> of beos, coded a couple of test apps.. got the programming guide 
> books and 
> the bible back in 2001.. but since I have but a few hours at a time, 
> it would 
> really help to learn some theory for the specific part that needs to 
> be done. 

Something like this can be either found in the BeBook, or even in some 
docs in our repository. If you cannot find any docs, you could also ask 
the developer in question to give you an introduction. Of course, this 
is time consuming, but if the developer can write a general 
introduction of that component and puts it in our repository, it's well 
worth the bothering :)

> other things. But even finding out what parts need to be worked on 
> isn't the 
> easiset thing, since alot of Haiku developers appear a bit hostile to 
> newcomers. 

Whatever we promised you, we'll certainly not eat you alive :-)
We may not always have enough time and "balance" to be equally nice to 
the 5th person asking the same question, but just don't get frightened. 
We will certainly welcome every helping hand - which makes sense if you 
think about it.
But since we're already quite big, we also count on your initiative - 
we cannot always give you a hand and show you around.

> 5. The biggest problem though, is me. Even though I full-heartedly 
> love this 
> system, I'm having a hard time dedicating 100% of my concentration/
> freetime 
[...]

That's indeed the biggest problem, and it's not just you. The thing is, 
that if you (or any other) take over an assignment, we trust you to 
work on it - if you don't you'll not only haven't helped the project, 
you have also slowed it down because someone else probably won't look 
into this component while you're supposed to be at it.
But you can always just do little things as fixing some things marked 
with "ToDo" or similar all over the place. You don't even need an 
assignment for that, you can do it whenever you like, it might be a 5 
minute thing or take an hour, whatever.

> PS. I'm tryin to learn how to write drivers, since that's always 
> needed.. but it's 
> a slow process for someone with little hardware-coding experience and 
> next to 
> noone to get pointers or answers from.. DS.

There is enough work to be done in other departments - not everyone has 
to be a driver writer either (of course we welcome any of those, too :-
)). You can even be helpful by learning C/C++ by reading our code.

> PS. My dream is to develop a midi/audio sequencer on some system that 
[...]

I would have something similar in mind if I wouldn't have to write an 
operating system before ;-)

Bye,
   Axel.

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