[PLEASE VOTE] so what should we be working on

[Dirk Hohndel]

> On May 30, 2016, at 11:51 AM, Willem Ferguson <willemferguson at zoology.up.ac.za> wrote:
> 
> On 30/05/2016 17:07, Benjamin wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On 29 May 2016 at 00:37, Dirk Hohndel <dirk at hohndel.org <mailto:dirk at hohndel.org>> wrote:
>> I have been focused on other things for a while (and the why and the what will become public fairly soon) and decided to use that chance to figure out what would happen if I just stopped paying attention here for a while.
>> 
>> So what should we be working on...? Should we...
>> 
>> (1) just shut this down and move on?
>> (2) move things to maintenance mode, abandon Subsurface-mobile, fix bugs in Subsurface whenever we find time but otherwise declare victory? It won't be too painful to track libdicecomputer and keep making 4.5.x releases for a while, I guess...
>> (3) focus on Subsurface-mobile, release the iOS version, update the Android version and see if there is a single person besides me who is willing to invest time into that?
>> (4) focus on Subsurface 4.6, fix the dive site management and create a list of prioritized features that we want to get in place?
>> (5) focus on Subsurface 5.0, write a completely new UI and abandon what we have in 4.5?
>> 
>> If your vote is for 3, 4, or 5 I assume that you are volunteering to carry some of the work that is needed to get there.
>> If you don't vote, I will count that as a vote for 1.
>> 
>> Good afternoon all,
>> As one of the many lurkers, I suppose that my 2 cents is worth slightly less than that. To be honest, my life and work balance went to hell in the past few months for various reasons.
>> 
>> Having said that, I would vote for 4  and 3, in that order. 5 sounds like a fun challenge, but as both KDE and Gnome have shown, it is rather painful...
>> 
>> Given some time, I'm more than willing to help. I just need to a.) get through this mess that I'm currently stuck in (Let's hear it for work politics...), and b.) learn how the hell the QT interface code works (are there any good tutorials for C/assembly programmers?).
>> 
>> Benjamin
>> 
> The decision for the future of Subsurface depends on how we see dive log software is likely to operate in future. Currently, by far the largest degree of innovation is on the different forms of mobile platforms. I would expect that this trend will continue for at least another decade. I would expect that smartphones will become more     powerful, screen management and UI will develop significantly, and that the standard laptop and desktop will become less ubiquitous and used mostly by individuals with a serious IT function in some way. For subsurface this means that, in the longer term,  the mobile versions could likely become more important and more frequently used than the desktop version. If one has to guess at the future, I would think: chug away steadily at the desktop version (perhaps making location management more intuitive and more robust [works well for me because I (think) I understand it as is]. I am not convinced that a totally redesigned UI is the priority now. While updating the desktop version, keep an eye on what our own needs are, what new hardware turns up and what other dive computers and dive management software do that may be cool. Then, at the same time focus on the mobile versions. As we all know, this is the conundrum. Amongst us, the skills base for mobile development is pretty meagre. I see this as the major challenge going forward. Knowing nothing about mobile software design, the current KDS-Qt platform appears pretty sophisticated, mostly because it offers cross-platform functionality starting with C++ with which many are familiar. For me, personally, the open source aspect of this is also important. Therefore I am very uncomfortable with myself to ask the question: is the current Qt platform the one that will serve future development of Subsurface the best? I do not have the insight to be able to say anything coherently about this, but I really hope Qt is indeed the viable route. For Subsurface to advance, several diver-developers will have to either learn how to do mobile software development, or we need to find divers who have these mobile skills and who are prepared to contribute materially.

We get a fair amount of feedback that amounts to "why are you using Kirigami instead of writing native apps for Android and iOS?" (many of them not phrased as neutrally as that).
And to me the thought process is simple. This way we can share code and we have a large part of the code written in a language / toolkit that many of us understand and (sorry) most importantly that I understand. I look at our Subsurface companion apps for Android and iOS (in Java / ObjC) and I can't even read the code enough to fix bugs, let alone contemplate expanding them to become full blown apps. So to me the decision to use Kirigami is still the correct decision. Yes, I wish that we had more developers - we get great support from Marco, Thomas, and Sebastian, and I know that several of you have tried to wrap their minds around QML, including you, Willem. And I have received some patches. I would feel a lot more comfortable if there was another developer who really understood the code and contributed regularly. A man can dream, right?

> A hardware-based implementation of libdivecomputer appears very attractive, given that digital technology at the OS level appears to change much faster than the dive computers that are still being used (on occasion I still deal with a VR3). I suspect that IrDA will be used quite some time into the future for one reason: several of the dive computers that use IrDA have proved to be either workhorses for technical and other more demanding diving, or are still very popular in (at least in some circles, e.g. Poseidon). A hardware solution therefore offers opportunities for significantly extending the life of dive computers using older technology.

Yes, the Subsurface-Box is something that will be required if we think that there will be more and more of a shift to only having mobile devices instead of desktop/laptop computers. I think that's a generational thing. I could never imagine wanting to edit my dives on a phone. But when talking to teenagers and people in their twenties I do meet some that don't even own a computer and do "everything" on a touch UI device.

Willem, the one thing that we really need right now in order for me to be able to feel good about Subsurface-mobile is an update to the user manual including the screen shots. Is there any chance that you might have the time to work on that?

/D

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