This is a good place to start. I've been through this tutorial,
written by someone else, and it worked. It really clearly steps
through every bit of the process. It's good for QML applications which
are mobile focussed, less good for "legacy" type desktop applications
though.

My program needs to be desktop, it needs to interface with external kit via usb.

Also worth looking at simple tools like tkinter or wxPython or to make
graphical Python apps. Building up to other toolkits afterwards.

My program is built in perl at present. Ideally I'd rather not have to start from scratch again if I can help it.

Debian packaging is not straightforward. This is one reason why we
developed click and then snappy packaging, which will debut in the
15.10/16.04 timeframe. That makes it very much easier to package up
applications.

The click packages interest me. Once fully implemented will it be possible to publish command line apps this way?

Well, there's going to have to be some research and learning on your
part too. Just throwing your hands in the air and saying "this is
broken" is somewhat defeatist.

I wouldn't say I'm doing that but there is an issue with being experienced and talking to someone who hasn't even started. It is difficult to know which of the things you know like the back of your hand are just alien to others. For instance the packaging guide mentions licenses and uses GPL as an example but doesn't tell you what the other options are or where you can go to explore them. It mentions files, tells you what to put in them but leaves you unsure of the file name or location.

The file structure required for packaging is not mentioned at all and I didn't see it talking about compressing the files either, but I know that's a must.

When the help files do not help, turning to others and saying it seems to be impossible is not just throwing your hands up and being defeatist. I know this is possible and I want to do it, my program is about as simple as they come so I don't think it's too much to ask that I put it to good use.

I have seen campaigns encouraging those with no programming experience to code for Ubuntu, so the process needs to be straightforward enough, and documented well enough, for such people to do so. At present it's not, or I would have managed it with far less effort and aggro than this.

--
ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/

Reply via email to