[maemo-developers] Proper documentation (was Re: [maemo-developers] HildonProgram input to gtk_widget_show()?)

[From: Mike Frantzen]

> Without proper developer documentation, I don't think it is realistic to
> expect many developers to migrate to the maemo platform.  Sure, maemo is
> fine for experienced developers, who have likely already developed for
> Linux/Unix, have some Gtk experience, etc.  But, there are Nokia 770 users
> out there who have no or little Linux experience and may also be
> developers.  I wonder how many developers have simply given up on maemo
> because of documentation.

I think it's even worse than that.  There are enough differences to the
usual linux/gtk development environment that the N770 is very
frustrating to develop for.  The usual embedded linux target gives the
developer the freedom to choose the methods to his madness.  The N770
forces developer do it Nokia's way or not at all.  Most embedded linux
targets are just as mature as the underlying linux system.  The N770
used enough bleeding edge technology that it has some very sharp edges;
and as a developer I really don't like the bleeding part.

The big ones that immedietly come to mind are:
  1) gstreamer which I understand if you want to offload multimedia to
     the DSP.  It's just too bad that it's not stable.
  2) dbus/libosso.  blech, complex solution to a simple problem.  very
     "Windows" like
  3) hildon-specific gtk widgets instead of just modifying the stock GTK
     widgets to work well on the N770 platform


Porting existing applications to the N770 involves rewriting some things
and kludging the hell out of others.  Both which make it much less likely
that the diffs will be accepted back into the main application's source
tree.  Which means the porter has to maintain his diffs out of the tree
which is a big PITA.

Writing new applications for the N770 locks your application into the
N770 platform or you implement a lot of things twice, once for the N770
and once for everything else.  You end up doing things twice since it's
much more pleasant to debug outside of a N770 or a scratchbox.

I'm not happy with the N770 software.  The hardware is great and the
platform does have some serious potential if it ever matures under the
hood.
 
.mike