All, Since its inception in September 2001, FreeRIDE, the 100% Ruby IDE, has made a lot of progress (http://freeride.rubyforge.org). The current version has quite a large number features and, above all, the underlying plugin architecture (FreeBASE databus) has proven to be stable and perfectly suited for this type of application. As of today, Curt Hibbs and I are the only active project members with Curt focusing on the delivery of the Windows installer and myself on the software development activities. FreeRIDE has reached a point where it has plenty of nice features that makes it appealing but it also has weaknesses that can be (really) annoying. Most notably we are looking for help in the following areas: - Documentation: FreeRIDE has a user guide but it is quite outdated. I have just started revamping it but I definitely need help in this area. It''s not a big thing as FreeRIDE is quite easy to use. In a second step the user guide needs a better integration in FreeRIDE. This means deciding on a format that is suitable for online publishing and viewing within the FOX framework. - Windows platform: this is where the most urgent need is. I am mostly a Linux developer and although I''m doing some testing on Win XP (through VMware), FreeRIDE is less stable on Windows than on Linux. For instance we need to improve the debugger, the script runner by making a batter use of the Windows Operating system capabilities, removing slowness in some places... Win2K and Win XP are the target platforms. - MacOSX platform: there has been some attempt lately to deliver a FreeRIDE installer for MacOSX but I need an active person in the core team responsible for driving the MacOSX community and organizing the work and/or building the MacOSX installer like Curt does for Windows and I do for Linux. - Testing, testing, testing...: testers are badly needed. By testers I mean people that use FreeRIDE but are also willing to identify the root cause of a bug and fix it. I use FreeRIDE myself for FreeRIDE development but I tend to always do the same operations which is not o good way of testing. If you are interested in helping us then drop me a mail telling me where you want to contribute and subscribe to the FreeRIDE developers mailing list (see http://rubyforge.org/mail/?group_id=31). Working on FreeRIDE is a lot of fun and it is extremelly rewarding because as a Ruby developer you''ll be improving a tool that makes Ruby programming even more fun. Thanks for all your help! Laurent Julliard
On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 08:00:37 -0500, you wrote:>- Testing, testing, testing...: testers are >badly needed. By testers I mean people that use FreeRIDE but are also >willing to identify the root cause of a bug and fix it.i guess that depends on what you wanted your target audience to be. i''m willing to test freeride on windows (i crash it hourly :/ ) but i don''t have the time (or the skill) to identify a bug specifically to the point where i an actually fix the bug... http://home.cogeco.ca/~tsummerfelt1 telnet://ventedspleen.dyndns.org
tony summerfelt wrote:> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 08:00:37 -0500, you wrote: > > >>- Testing, testing, testing...: testers are >>badly needed. By testers I mean people that use FreeRIDE but are also >>willing to identify the root cause of a bug and fix it. > > > i guess that depends on what you wanted your target audience to be. > > i''m willing to test freeride on windows (i crash it hourly :/ ) but i > don''t have the time (or the skill) to identify a bug specifically to > the point where i an actually fix the bug... > >But what is really important is to a) report the bug which people do and b) to describe the steps has to go trough to reproduce the problem. Too often people poste bugs saying it crashed, here is the call stack from FreeRIDE but they don''t tell us how to reproduce the bu systematically. Only doing this would be great! Laurent -- Laurent JULLIARD http://www.moldus.org/~laurent
I would like to help with FreeRIDE. Probably could help most in Documentation (to start). Will write more about myself when I see this make it to the mailing list... (it''s my third try...) "Laurent Julliard" <Laurent.Julliard@xrce.xerox.com> wrote in message news:422315F5.1070308@xrce.xerox.com...> All, > > Since its inception in September 2001, FreeRIDE, the 100% Ruby IDE, > has made a lot of progress (http://freeride.rubyforge.org). The > current version has quite a large number features and, above all, the > underlying plugin architecture (FreeBASE databus) has proven to be > stable and perfectly suited for this type of application. > > As of today, Curt Hibbs and I are the only active project members with > Curt focusing on the delivery of the Windows installer and myself on > the software development activities. FreeRIDE has reached a point > where it has plenty of nice features that makes it appealing but it > also has weaknesses that can be (really) annoying. > > Most notably we are looking for help in the following areas: > > - Documentation: FreeRIDE has a user guide but it is quite outdated. I > have just started revamping it but I definitely need help in this > area. It''s not a big thing as FreeRIDE is quite easy to use. In a > second step the user guide needs a better integration in FreeRIDE. > This means deciding on a format that is suitable for online publishing > and viewing within the FOX framework. > > - Windows platform: this is where the most urgent need is. I am mostly > a Linux developer and although I''m doing some testing on Win XP > (through VMware), FreeRIDE is less stable on > Windows than on Linux. For instance we need to improve the debugger, > the script runner by making a batter use of the Windows Operating > system capabilities, removing slowness in some places... Win2K > and Win XP are the target platforms. > > - MacOSX platform: there has been some attempt lately to deliver a > FreeRIDE installer for MacOSX but I need an active person in the core > team responsible for driving the MacOSX community and organizing the > work and/or building the MacOSX installer like Curt does for Windows > and I do for Linux. > > - Testing, testing, testing...: testers are > badly needed. By testers I mean people that use FreeRIDE but are also > willing to identify the root cause of a bug and fix it. I use FreeRIDE > myself for FreeRIDE development but I tend to always do the same > operations which is not o good way of testing. > > If you are interested in helping us then drop me a mail telling me > where you want to contribute and subscribe to the FreeRIDE developers > mailing list (see http://rubyforge.org/mail/?group_id=31). Working on > FreeRIDE is a lot of fun and it is extremelly rewarding because as a > Ruby developer you''ll be improving a tool that makes Ruby programming > even more fun. > > Thanks for all your help! > > Laurent Julliard