To all Flexers: Since Eric has provided the guidance for all us SVN users to fall back off the wagon, it is a good time to also discuss how we should exchange information regarding the new (and potentially incomplete) features in the alpha code. By using SVN code, we are not only using the latest and possibly greatest software for your SDR, but we also are implicitly participating in an alpha/beta tester program. With that privilege comes the responsibility of being good software testers and helping the developers make the code better. That is the ultimate goal of what we are doing. If they don't create new wiz bang things to use, the software will get stale and we'll start having SVN withdrawals. (It isn't a pretty sight and there is no methadone treatment for this addiction HI HI)
It is an easy job to be a good software tester. Use the software and voice your opinions (and we all have them). One of the repeated wishes of FRS and the development team is that information exchanged about SVN alpha/beta code *not* be sent to the Reflector. There is a splash screen when we run SVN code that explicitly asks us to report bugs to the bug tracker and keep discussions about SVN code off of the Reflector. By using the SVN versions we are technically agreeing to those terms. But, there are times where the perceived issues with some of the SVN code needs to be openly discussed by the testers so that adequate feedback by all can be exchanged, since one person's issue is another person's perfect feature (aka on size doesn't fit all). This is where the Reflector had been used due to its convenience and high visibility. The Reflector is a convenient medium to use, but a very poor one to organize discussions about specific topics. Topics NEED to be organized by subject or thread so that all of the relevant information about the discussion is laid out in a logical sequential format. The Reflector does not do this. Topics need to be easily searchable and achievable so that we can see if previous information is pertinent to current issues being discussed. Again, the Reflector does not do this well at all. Also the "half life" of a reflector discussion, disjointed as it is, is only about 36 to 48 hours at the most. Since discussion on a forum can span months and still be conveniently organized as a thread, you do not loose continuity. The forums do the aforementioned things that the Reflector does poorly very well. It is the information management tool of choice for this process. What the Reflector does do very well is provide a way to get your message out to a large audience easily and get responses back in an automated fashion because e-mail is the prime mechanism for doing so (and we all have our e-mail open 7 x 24 x 366 (this is a leap year)). Historically, this is where Forums have lacked convenience because you had to remember to open a different application (a web browser) and go check a web page or two in order to participate in the discussions. If you forgot to do it (I am in this group), you missed some juicy gossip and the effectiveness of having group discussions diminishes greatly. This is the convenience factor associated with a Reflector. So a convenient and organized way is needed to effectively participate in the development process. Fortunately we have one. It is the FlexRadio Forums http://forums.flex-radio.com . But wait, didn't you just say that the forums are not convenient to use? I said "historically" they have had this deficiency. But not any more. Our forums have recently been updated to have the ability to subscribe AUTOMATICALLY to all posts in a particular forum. Subscribing is the process of receiving e-mail alerts when a new post is added or when an existing post has been modified in a forum. So we get an IMMEDIATE alert delivered into our e-mail inboxes telling us to go look at the new forum posting. Forgetfulness (and out of sight, out of mind) is no longer an issue with using the forums. Let me describe how to use the forums to discuss software development issues related to testing SVN code. First, there is a specific forum, Software:Windows PowerSDR SVN (alpha versions) for discussing SVN things, like bug reports, suggestions for changes and direct feedback to and from the developers. It is located here: http://forums.flex-radio.com/Forum47-1.aspx Now most people use the Reflector because it is an easy way to get your message distributed to the masses quickly via e-mail. To get the same functionality, you just *subscribe* to a forum, like the one above. This is very easy to do and is described in detail in the following forum post (it is also a "pinned" post in the forum mentioned above). http://forums.flex-radio.com/Topic439-47-1.aspx You only need to subscribe to a forum once. Once you have subscribed, you will get an e-mail notification with a URL (link) that will take you directly to the forum posting (it doesn't get any more convenient than that!). So everyone who is testing SVN software, lets keep our developers VERY happy (and cranking out the new features and enhancements we want most) and comply with their wishes not to continue using the Reflector to discuss SVN issues by signing up for a forum login and subscribing to the Software:Windows PowerSDR SVN (alpha versions) forum. This will only be effective if everyone takes the responsibility of being a software tester seriously and uses the forum as they were intended to be. In reality, this is a very small "price" to "pay" for actually being able to contribute interactively in the radio development process. No other radio manufacturer lets you do this. It is a privilege and an honor to be able to be part of the process. There are very few conditions asked of us by FlexRadio Systems and I think they are all we can easily comply with. That is not posting SVN discussions on the reflector and posting bug reports to the bug tracker so they get logged and addressed. If you do not have a forum, login, please go to the KB and reference the articles for using the forums. You can find all of the forum specific KB articles here: http://kb.flex-radio.com/default.aspx?cNode=4N7Y8M A few other notes. - Your e-mail address is not "exposed" by the forums, so signing up for them will not allow spammers to steal your e-mail address from the forums. - You can easily send e-mail or private messages to other forum members "off list" easily from any forum post. - You can also subscribe to other forums, like the FLEX-5000 and SDR-1000 discussion forums, which have been fairly active. - Make sure you set you login to automatically remember you so that when you access the forums via the e-mail alert message, you are automatically logged in. See ya on the Forums! -Tim ---- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Wachsmann Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 12:23 AM To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] New Features I've been asked many times over the past few days where all of these new features that people see in the SVN log are going. Rather than continue to answer these questions privately, I thought I might as well inform the whole community because I'm sure there's others of you wondering the same things. First, the geek-speak. If any of this confuses you, skip straight to the next paragraph. Since we released PowerSDR v1.10.4, we have entered a new era in our SVN development methodology. We are now taking the more typical approach of developing in branches and posting only bug fixes to the trunk. The advantage to this method is that we can more easily develop in our own SVN corner without stepping on each others toes while also keeping the trunk nice and stable. It also means easier merging between branches since we not constantly merging to the trunk and back. It can be confusing since the svn revisions continue to increment in the update window, but the binaries in the trunk stay at the same revision (and the version shown on the console doesn't change). This is normal and is not something to worry about -- keep reading. What all this means for you (the users): The features that we are working on are no longer available in the trunk. <pause for the collective gasp> Ok. Once the SVN junkies have regained their composure, we'll continue. Believe it or not, we thought this through before we implemented it. And rather than making you wonder which branch to jump into to test the latest features (and give us your valuable feedback), we thought we'd help simplify things as much as we can. What we've done is add a branch called test. We will be collecting the features that each developer finishes in the ./branches/test folder. This is where we would like to officially point the SVN junkies who have been struggling to get their fix from the trunk lately. The process to download this test branch is as follows: 1. Create a new folder. 2. Right click on the folder and select "SVN Checkout..." 3. Plug in the following URL: svn://206.216.146.154/svn/repos_sdr_windows/PowerSDR/branches/test/bin/Relea se (beware likely line break) 4. Click OK and the binary files will download. 5. Start PowerSDR in the new folder and enjoy the latest and greatest features. As always, please remember that SVN revisions are considered alpha versions and may contain bugs. If you are uncomfortable with this idea, we would recommend that you stick with using the latest official release (currently v1.10.4) or the trunk, whichever you prefer. If you still feel like all of this SVN stuff is over your head, take a look at the Tortoise SVN Quick Start Guide available on our download page/knowledge base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/Article.aspx?id=10220 Have a great weekend and Happy Flexin'. :) Eric Wachsmann FlexRadio Systems _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kb.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
