Re: [Gnome-devtools] What we're doing.

[Andrew Sutton <asutton21 home com>]

Dave Camp wrote:
> 
> Hello hackers,
> 
> There have been a few people complaining recently that we have no
> documentation explaining what we're working on.  These complaints
> combined with being asked the same questions numerous times on irc
> have led me to write down these notes about what we're working on and
> what new developers can do to help.
> 
> This is just my view of what's going on.  I'm sure people will have
> corrections, additions, flames, whatever.  Please comment on this.
> 
> * What we're working toward
> 
> Our end goal is to create an easy to use and powerful environment for
> developing applications.  This means having an environment that the
> user can tailor to his or her needs, and that fits in with the
> developer's way of working.
> 
> Our basic strategy is to build small, well defined components that
> will work together to form a complete environment.  We'll be using the
> bonobo component model to help achieve these goals.  Having these
> seperate components should keep development manageable.  Most
> implementation details can be left to the maintainers of the various
> components, and only the interaction of the public interfaces will
> need to be coordinated across components.
> 

with all due respect, i don't know if you're entirely sure what you're
should be working towards. it doesn't make sense to me to come out and
say that we're building this complicated system to perform all these
tasks without really defining what those tasks are. you need to define
the context in which these components operate - in this case it should
be a development process.

one of my friends and i have been talking this over for the last week.
it makes sense to us to build components around the development process.
the development environment integrates all the components and allows
developers to follow and work within the context of the development
process.

integrating around the process provides some interesting tools for
documenting steps in that process (system specification, software
requirements, design, code, etc). it also lets us see what components
are missing, which can be improved, and which can be replaced for more
complicated development or project management.

> * What pieces are needed
> 
> A basic development environment consists of a few different pieces.
> Some fundamental pieces of a development environment are (in no
> particular order):
> 
> * A project management/build system
> * An editor
> * A debugger
> * Code analysis tools (class browsers, etc)
> * A documentation system.
> * GUI builders.
> * Code generators.
> * Revision control.
> * Process tools (things like UML integration, bug tracking, etc).
> 

i think it would be a mistake to focus only on the implementation
portion of the development process. everybody has something to do that,
but a truly integrated development environment needs to focus an all
parts of the process, not just relegate certain tools to a process tools
list.

but those are just thoughts...

Andrew Sutton
asutton21 home com