In article <1253181177.5804.293.ca...@duiker>, John-Mark Bell <j...@netsurf-browser.org> wrote:
> In NetSurf's case, I can guarantee that it would be less > developed, less robust, and less usable had development > remained solely on RISC OS. > Having access to such tools as valgrind and gdb is > invaluable. The tooling on RISC OS doesn't even come > close, and having to wait 20 minutes instead of 20 > seconds for a full rebuild isn't likely to help > development :) > > All they're asking in return is that a RISC OS > > developer joins them to keep the RISC OS bits up to > > date. Sorry, but that doesn't seem like a big ask to > > me -- which is probably why I offered to help, although > > I don't seem to have the time available right now > > either. > I'm glad that at least one person "gets it". I would hope that, following this thread, most of us can now really understand what the situation is. Thanks for taking the time to explain so clearly. I am sure that most, if not all of us can grasp the idea of doing something for the reason that it is interesting, rather than for any other reason. One of the upsides of this for the person doing the work is that they simply do not have to do something that does not interest them. (Though this could be modified to some extent by commitment to a group, as here.) I must admit that in the past I have been critical of some aspects of NetSurf developement, but then I was under the mistaken impression that there was some specific professional or commercial aim in view. As Rob Kendrick so succinctly put it: > Writing NetSurf is fun. Where it runs doesn't really come > into it. It's a hobby. Which, at the end of the day, means that anyone who uses it but does not or cannot contribute has to take it as it is. As an aside, I do now wonder if the reason that many RISC OS users may not have grasped just what is involved is that many of us probably were reasonably competent 15 to 20 years ago at producing decent programs in BASIC, COMAL or Pascal (say), but have no experience of the way programming tools and environments have changed since those days. If I think about it sensibly, I suspect that the changes have been enormous and that we would find it extremely difficult to get our heads around the intervening hanges. So, thanks for what we have. Over the last couple of years NetSurf on RISC OS has eveolved into a browser I can regularly use, although there are plenty of things it cannot do. But it does mean that I can now do things on RISC OS that I had to use Firefox or another windows browser for. Thanks again. -- Russell Hafter - Mailing Lists rh.li...@phone.coop Need a hotel? <http://www.hrs.com/?client=en__blue&customerId=416873103> (NB This link needs Firefox to work)
