Rockbox Development > New Ports

Creative's Micro Zen

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saratoga:

--- Quote from: Falco98 on May 20, 2006, 07:06:47 PM ---
OTOH i'm rather surprised ANY new ports ever get developed with the whole policy of "we won't do it until someone else does first". 

I'd say maybe the best approach might be to create a sitewide poll for "next development target", everyone voting, and then using project funds to buy a small handful of players for key devs, and just get that model hammered out.  Advantages of this would be that some control could be affected over ensuring a certain variety of targets, and that each new model tackled would be a specific and concentrated task.

--- End quote ---

I don't think anyone is going to work on developing for a target they're not interested in.  Since no one is interested in working on the Micro Zen, no amount of voteing will make a difference until someone becomes motivated enough to do it.

My idea:  If you want it, buy one and start working on it  yourself.  Otherwise, don't complain when other people don't do things you're not willing to do yourself.

Llorean:
Yeah, to port to a target takes quite a bit of hard work. You have to really _want_ to do it. Usually this means having and already liking the player, and having a desire to improve it.

Then there's the question of "when project funds are spent, which devs are sent players? What if they get tired of them, or decide they don't really like them?" In the end, it's better to let the project remain self-directed. Ports _are_ started without someone else starting them first (X5, iPod, H300, basically all the SWCodec platforms.) The policy is really more "We'll port what we feel like porting, but you're welcome to take our code and port to something else. We'll help where we can, but don't expect us to devote large amounts of our spare time to a player we personally really have no interest in."

Falco98:
well, i'm not saying we should make major sitewide porting efforts to players that won't port for crap (and i'm not sure where any of the creative players stand, in general)..  But I'd at least like to see some effort to do a roundup (in writing) of all the players that are out there with decent availability and/or popularity (and this could reach pretty far into lesser-known brands/models pretty quickly), and "float to the top" ones that
A) seem that they would make easy & good port targets, and
B) cover (with specific intent and forethought) at least some variety in brand/model, so as to attract more users from the outside.

The devs and admins could narrow the list to a handful that seem to make worthy next-targets, and (perhaps) it could be put to a vote as to what target will be "nexted" (voting, or at least polling via forum responses, would be useful in determining what kind of present userbase and/or developer-base there already is active here.  it would also help to justify the use of project funds to buy a few test players, though this might need to come after someone verifying that the player would even be a possible target).

Perhaps i describe a process that is already ongoing behind the scenes here, but if so (and trust me when i say i've scanned the "ports" page on the wiki) it seems a bit transparent.

Llorean:
Well, the iRiver port isn't released yet. We don't even support all iPods yet, and the X5 is in progress. As well there's work on the Toshiba Gigabeat and the iFP-700 series of flash players.

The Wiki is open, feel free to start collecting information on other devices, but with the number of in-progress ports at the moment, why should the core devs sacrifice time spent getting those done just to collect information on players they're probably never going to work on?

Falco98:

--- Quote from: Llorean on May 21, 2006, 10:44:23 PM ---The Wiki is open, feel free to start collecting information on other devices, but with the number of in-progress ports at the moment, why should the core devs sacrifice time spent getting those done just to collect information on players they're probably never going to work on?

--- End quote ---
well i agree.. though it may be useful, if nothing else, to try to make a basic chart of the bigger list of players-out-there to at least categorize them as "not portable ever" or "probably portable", for starters (for many, this might be doable without ever having a player in-hand, but just culling all known hardware info about said player).  all that would be needed would be the most basic reasoning (as long as there's something rational there..). 

Of course this wouldn't need to be done by the core devs, though it helps to be a user very familiar with RB, programming, and the architectures generally necessary to make for a good port target.  Also, if I were flying blind trying to pick something nice-looking out at the store to purchase and crack open, it would help to have a list of at least what i should disconsider.

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