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Don't expect miracles here, don't expect solutions to world's problems. It is more likely that I will ask [myself] questions looking for a always elusive answer.
And of course: "All opinions expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily represent the official view of Nokia". I mean it!

No fun!?

ltomuta | 03 March, 2008 22:08

Isn't it fun when people seem to have a lot of fun screaming that, well, ... it's no fun?

 

This is intended as an answer to the comments received on my previous post. I'm going to start from the end, with the more constructive ones. Of course Nokia should be getting more involved and support and encourage the open source development. As mentioned already there are some steps in this direction and I'm sure more will be done in this direction. Forum Nokia's „Garage” could only be one step further but would such an initiative work without passionate developers?

 

So, what is killing developer's desire to work on Symbian OS. It cannot be fact that it is different. The fact that it proposes Active Objects rather than threads? The fact that it leaves and traps rather than throwing and catching? These are paradigms that one learns and (if needed) adapts to. What makes a thread more fun than an active object? What makes CObject more fun than CBase? Definitely a challenge when porting a project across platforms but within the Symbian community that can hardly be an issue.

 

No universally accepted IDE ... hmm, tough one. I have Visual Studio, CodeWarrior and Carbide on my machine. Each with advantages and disadvantages (the price being one of them). But then I look at a true Linux and open source guru like Kate, she uses vi and makes magic with Maemo. So, what's wrong with Notepad, or one of its open source clones? Wink Seriously, Carbide.c++ is getting better and better with each new release.

 

I definitely agree with you when it comes to the on-device debugger. A lot of software has been done without it for S60's 1rst and 2nd Edition phones but well, it wasn't much fun. Now it is available but not for fun free. So, only for commercial applications? Maybe not, if you think about it the cheapest version of Carbide.c++ with ODD is 50€. Not much, when compared with the price of the hardware on which you are supposed to use this debugger, is it?

 

We'll have to wait on this and see how things are progressing. Whether the "Garage" will be launched or not, whether we'll see some amazing projects there or not, only time can tell. But however this ends let's hope that our trip with S60 will be (eventualy) a ... joyride (ptrmn, I hope you like your compatriots :)

 

 

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Comments

Instant gratification

mgroeber9110 | 04/03/2008, 10:37

I agree with you that the simple fact that there are some new paradigms to learn should not really be an obstacle. In fact, it can be something I personally find quite refreshing because it gives you a different perspective on things that are just taken for granted on other platforms. I actually like looking at Symbian OS as a huge class library for C++ written from scratch, and without any regards for compatibility - it is interesting in what ways this comes out different from other platforms with APIs that have a Posix, Win32 or STL heritage.

One thing that occurred to me as being different when developing on mobile phones (as opposed to, say, the Linux desktop) is that you are missing the "early rewards" - you have to go through a lot of set-up, code modifications, learning new design tools etc. all at once before you see the first signs on your phone's screen that you have actually achieved anything.

On the other hand, it seems to me (as, admittedly, a relative outsider) as if much of the work in desktop-based OSS projects consists of reconnecting existing modules in interesting ways, and incrementally building a platform that, though fragmented in detail, gives lots of opportunities to port *lib to the XYZ CD-based distribution, and thus has a lot of relatively small sub-tasks that allow people to start contributing.

In my view Symbian doesn't seem to have reached that level yet, where people who just want to "wet their feet" a bit can pick from a lot of relatively straightforward tasks to learn the ropes and have their first experience of success rather quickly.

Not sure what the next steps for this would be, but perhaps something like "Cygwin for Symbian", i.e. a framework to which individuals can more quickly contribute on the basis of existing code.

Open C seems to be a baby step in that direction, but of course it still lacks much of the higher levels to actually come to visible results without having to learn about the rest of Symbian as well...

Re: No fun!?

alammi | 04/03/2008, 17:43

I'm spending way too much figuring out how different API's work, because they are badly documented. The actual functionality can often be incomplete, crashing or simply just different that has been described.

I think having only C++ class header as documentation is simply not acceptable. I regard Symbian C++ as trial and error programming, since I can not simply trust that an API works before I've tried it well enough on few devices.

On other systems, like Windows, you can have degree of trust that everything works as documented, and almost everything IS documented. Also Microsoft has great 3rd party developer support, which I can not say of Nokia. For example, I've submitted my Location Acquisition API bug to the wiki over 3 months ago and still no response from Nokia! I think this is totally unacceptable.

http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/RPositioner::NotifyPositionUpdate_return_KErrInUse_after_few_minutes

Re: No fun!?

ltomuta | 04/03/2008, 22:27

ltomuta

Interesting comments again. Thanks guys!

Regarding the Location Acquisition API bug, it must be that we have a communication problem here. What you have published in the wiki is a Known Issue and not a bug report. It is natural to expect some confirmation that the bug is being analyzed but a known issues is self-contained and self-explained. No communication should be expected from Forum Nokia other than maybe if we find that the so called known issue is not (entirely) valid.

BTW, the Bug Reporting service can be found at http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/technical_services/technical_support/index.html

Joyride

ptrmn | 09/03/2008, 15:55

No one in his right mind would prefer Roxette over The Stooges. :)

Re: No fun!?

ltomuta | 09/03/2008, 18:02

ltomuta

Wasn't it the whole idea to make Symbian/S60 a pop(ular) platform? :) Of course it cannot happen unless it rocks first.

But in fact, we seem to be already at The Stooges level, judging by this Wikipedia entry "... [The Stooges] often performed for indifferent or hostile audiences. ...".

:))

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