Re: Future of Knowit

Hi all - I hope no one minds a callow newbie offering his two cents:

I think that, ultimately, continuing or discontinuing your pet project
is a personal choice that other people can comment on, but ultimately,
cannot affect.  I'd be awfully disappointed if this great app that I
found so recently suddenly became abandoned, but if you have to do it
to keep yourself sane, then by all means, do it!

On the other hand, I think Mr. Osterfeld made a pretty good point
about how keeping KnowIt up-to-date probably wouldn't be a huge
imposition on anyone's schedule.  I also think that his point about
"the from-scratch rewrite that we think about once a year, but never
do" was more lucid than he intended: In my (small) experience with
(few) software projects, "from scratch" rewrites are a death-sentence.
 You lose all of the hard work you've put into bug-checking,
compatibility, and, well... you lose all of your hard work, period!  I
think it's more demoralizing than liberating.

I don't think there would be anything wrong or foolish about letting
KnowIt chill until KDE4's API is ready to be worked with, and then
adding whichever features can be added giving the limitations (or lack
thereof) of KnowIt's existing codebase.  I tried kdissert and found
the GUI both unintuitive and slightly terrifying, like a nightmare
clown who screams Lojban at the top of his lungs.  (Actually that
would be kind of awesome.)

Anyway, KnowIt is a great app, and until the Google execs who play
darts to decide on their next project pin "web-based outliner", I
doubt that another project as simple, intuitive and robust will come
along.

Regards,
Max



On 2/28/07, Frank Osterfeld <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Miha=B3!
>
> On Wednesday 28 February 2007, Michal Rudolf wrote:
> > I wanted to state my thoughts about Knowit future. Basically I have to
> > decide if I should continue my work on Knowit (or, really, if I should =
stop
> > not to work on Knowit).
> >
> > Pro:
> > 1. Knowit was my first KDE application and thanks to it I was able to
> > participate in KDE development, two aKademys etc.
> > 2. I know it was useful for some people including me.
> > 3. A lot of new features can be added.
> > 4. Working on new Knowit will be fun.
> >
> > Con:
> > 1. You cannot make your living developing free applications and I am
> > already involved in another free Open Source project and in translating=
 KDE
> > into Polish.
>
> Right, many of experience that - having not the time for our pet projects
> anymore when having a fulltime day job. On the other hand, there isn't mu=
ch
> to be done to keep KnowIt useful - for me it "just works". I didn't
> experience any crashes, data loss or really annoying bugs (so annoying th=
at I
> either stopped using KnowIt or was bothered enough to fix them ;-) ) in
> _years_. Of course one could think of thousands of features that would
> improve knowit and make it shine. But even if without such improvements it
> stays useful for me. I see no reason to stop using it ever unless somethi=
ng
> comes along that can replace KnowIt fully for me and has additional featu=
res
> that I need or think I need. I don't see such an app - so I continue using
> KnowIt.
>
> > 2. There are other, more advanced, more actively developed applications
> > that can replace Knowit - kdissert, TreeLine, probably more.
> > 3. A lot of missing features cannot be implemented using current design=
 - I
> > will have to rewrite almost from scratch.
>
> kdissert is totally different to me and not suited for managing text page=
s of
> notes - it helped me to structure my thesis though. Importing my knowit f=
ile
> just ended in a mess. The treeline homepage is down so I can't try that o=
ne.
> The UI looks too bloated for my needs - I don't want forms or stuff like
> that. Just give me plain text, some markup and links.
>
> > 4. KDE 4 is getting near, but I guess it will get at least half a year =
to
> > make the first release. Therefore, I will have to either rewrite for KD=
E 3
> > and then spend serious time porting or wait half a year. Probably it is
> > possible to develop for KDE 4 right now, but it is a bit too much work =
for
> > me.
>
> I personally would wait until KDE4 is out the door or at least ready so I=
 use
> it as my desktop. Then it can be ported directly to KDE4 or be rewritten =
from
> scratch if anyone has the motivation to do so.
> If nobody else ports it to KDE4, I will do it anyway, just to be able to
> continue using it with nice KDE4 desktop integration. I also don't think
> porting it will take long (it is just a few files after all, IIRC).
>
> > So, looks like each Pro is countered by Con. Or, maybe, it is a tie.
> >
> > What are your thoughts?
>
> I think the most important goal is to keep KnowIt maintained, prevent it =
from
> bitrot and make sure that it will be ported to KDE4. This kind of mainten=
ance
> shouldn't be too much work (c, and any of us can do. If you don't want to=
 do
> that, I would volunteer.
>
> Then, there are people like Max who might want to improve KnowIt by small
> corrections or even new features. That could improve KnowIt gradually, ev=
en
> if slowly. Having sentimental feelings for KnowIt as it was my first KDE
> project I contributed code to ever, I also see small apps like KnowIt a g=
ood
> way to get started with KDE development.
>
> Third, there is the "big rewrite" and redesigning from scratch that we th=
ink
> of once a year or so but probably never will do :P
> Chances being small that it will happen, making the latest source availab=
le
> easily and encouraging others to work on it won't hurt. And if it only
> increases the chance of a glorious knowit future from 0.1 to 0.2%.
>
> So make sure that 1) KnowIt survives in its hibernation state it is in no=
w for
> some time. 2) make it easy for other developers to access the source and
> create patches (for lazy bums like me, that would be an SVN checkout).
>
> Frank
>
>
>
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>


-- =

Max Cantor
Designer, Illustrator and Computer Automator
802-447-ICON (on-campus)
516-639-1807 (mobile)
http://inspiranity.com
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