Feature creep vs stability

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moredruid
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Feature creep vs stability

Postby moredruid » Fri Feb 12, 2010 6:22 am

Lately I've been seeing lots of new apps (great!) but Amahi seems to be going in the direction of feature creep. Too many apps (that must be supported/fixed etc.) and some must have apps that are broken (e.g. PBA). For a test release I can live with that, but it keeps me very conservative with updates on the "stable" release even. IMO this is not a good thing. Amahi is a great product and idea, but some things should _never_ break. And with so many apps available it's hard to test every combination of apps to make sure everything works and stays working. Currently it makes me not want to upgrade to F12, and I noticed last time that PBA was broken on F10 as well. I need to test again (I updated again) to see if PBA is working, maybe it conflicts with the DLNA server (though I don't think so unless they use the same ports), but still.

Anyway, just my thoughts on this and I welcome all input/discussion heartily. Perhaps there should be a more distinct line between stable and current/bleeding edge?
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cpg
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Re: Feature creep vs stability

Postby cpg » Tue Feb 16, 2010 2:40 am

I would like to discuss this a bit.

Your point is well taken. Let me answer this in various ways:
  • To ensure application stability long term, there is a project (burn-baby-burn) to do regressions in applications this has hit some snags, but it will get done and we will be able to achieve stability in applications
  • The legacy apps (PBA, AmahiTunes, ...) broke as the restructuring of the platform happened for the 5.0 release. In the interest of time, we released with them broken. I'd be
  • The contributions in apps are very valuable. Apps cannot really make the system unstable (that would be a serious bug!)
  • In term of skills, we don't really have much overlap, in the sense that the team contributing apps does not have what it takes to program, so it's not really inefficient to continue doing that ... :)
Your idea of having an "edge" version of Amahi is great. I think I would like to pursue that further. It would be great to get us an area for testing the latest faster, and leaving the latest release as stable and keep it that way.
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pluscool
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Re: Feature creep vs stability

Postby pluscool » Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:21 am

I would like to see apps group in categories with a little description, for example: Admin-tools, social media, Media, Streaming apps, experimental betas...

I feel that the apps list is growing fast and is getting harder to find/see things. It could be nice to enter a category to see and compare apps for the same purpose.

Another usability observation: in HDA>setup>Apps we have "webapps", but for me as a user with no knowledge of apps building can't see difference with the other apps and I think I don't care about that. Is really necessary a differentiation in that level? Wouldn't be enough with a little icon or symbol in the tittle of the app that informs about it and just erase the "webapps" category?

teixemf
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Re: Feature creep vs stability

Postby teixemf » Sat Jul 10, 2010 1:09 am

I agree with some of the comments here.
Apps list is getting larger in an unmanaged and uncontrolled away.
It would be easier to start organizing them now.

joeaverge
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Re: Feature creep vs stability

Postby joeaverge » Sun Jul 11, 2010 4:41 am

I have had some thoughts and ideas about Amahi and I am thinking the thread is just the place.

There seems to be MANY apps of a similar kind.

Could it be time to direct Amahi to a more high level focus?

At a high level you could have Business and Home User
Then look at the types of apps these types os user would need and pick the best suited apps for each. This may help the testing and stability and the main focus wouls be on these and not all apps released.

JoeAverge

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