Layers.library V45 on the aminet

[kolla]

Without any single point of communication, reporting bugs for OS3.9 is a PITA. It speaks volumes that even those who are "inside" and know other OS developer by their first names, even they do not know the legal status of a rather core component of the OS.

[kolla]

The next time I'll have access to the Amiga will be in October (yes really, it is really that slow).

Why not build yourself an Amiga in the cloud? :hammer:

[kolla]

Luckily there is Cosmos

[kolla]

As often, this is really a matter of perspective. Especially on "future". Look, I probably should not open up this discussion, but if I really seriously consider what the future should be - at least as far as computing is concerned - then it is not Amiga. It's a nice hobby, for sure, but it's not the future of computing. It is the past of computing.

Wow, did you figure out this just now?

[kolla]

At one time I would have agreed, recently he's trashed his own reputation in a dick waving contest.

And that is relevant how? As long as he uses his skills to explore and improve things, I don't really care about the social aspect.

[kolla]

Commodore was on their way to Windows NT on PA-RISC for the next "Amiga"

[kolla]

Again, what is "working" for you? For me it means that I can also fix something in two years in the future. With the kind of "improvements" I see from Cosmos this is unlikely to be even possible. First of all, it doesn't really improve anything, and second, even if the results were measurable, the improvements were lost or incompatible to any other changes that had to be made.  Anyhow, make your pick. If you don't agree with me, I'm ready to leave and don't touch any of the old stuff anymore.

i dont understand how unofficial patches like that of Cosmos affect any future "proper" maintainance or whatever you have in mind, or how they in any way makes anything "unmaintainable" - noone is forced to use those patches, they are totally optional and experimental, they may work perfectly for some, but not for all. it reminds me of those who think same-sex marriage somehow affect so called traditional marriage.

But oh well, you are clearly fishing for an external excuse to finally leave Amiga scene behind, which probably would be the best for everyone anyhow.

[kolla]

There is no official way, whoever wants to do something with AmigaOS for m68k are free to do so, offering patches like Cosmos is doing is perfectly legal and I prefer that people like you stop pretending that it is not. You say you will try to clean up things and do it the proper way - well, then quit talking about it already, and do it, and then show the community what you have managed. You have had 15 years already, dont expect us to quietly sit here doing nothing, we are all getting old and gray while you are "trying". You have been told many times, over and over, that the community prefers open source. You have made it clear that you are scared of open sourcing AmigaOS components, you do not trust the community, you look at us as unworthy and uncapable. What a shame that you are such a wuss. You have also made it clear that you are no longer developing, only maybe fixing a bug here and there if you feel like it. You are not advocating a protocol for development, that is a protocol for stand still.

[kolla]

If someone does come along and starts writing applications for the amiga then it's going to be a nightmare to make sure it's compatible with all the different hacks.

First or all, that is a huge IF, and secondly, no, it is no more a nightmare than what we have had the last 20 years now.
 

Getting people on the same page was one of the reasons for OS3.5 & 3.9 in the first place.

In that respect they were total failures

[kolla]

Lesson to learn: never sign any NDA when it comes to software development, it can and will work against you.

[kolla]

Then you will never be able to work in professional (as in: for money) software development.

Not true at all, there are plenty of jobs in open source development.

[kolla]

gnu 68k compilers are shockingly bad, it's one of the things that needs the most development.

GCC (and glibc) for m68k has gotten quite a bit of attention the last few years and is far from "shockingly bad". Upgrade already.

[kolla]

Thoram: code an IPv6 capable TCP stack for AmigaOS in asm, it is very much needed, is perfectly doable and worth while on 68k, and complex enough to drive you insane.

[kolla]

Can you back that up, I can't find any proof of that online.

From the top of my head, thread local storage (TLS) support for m68k and coldfire was added in gcc 4.5, by people from codesourcerer, an embedded company. A lot of improvements in gcc are general and also affect m68k. Improvements to coldfire support are also reflected on the m68k since they are so similar. Check the gcc changelogs.

https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.5/changes.html for example.

Personally I have spent lots of time on Gentoo for Linux/m68k, and can from experience just say that it works pretty well.

[kolla]

This sounds pretty abstract, so I'd like to give an example of such a tool that might show up one day and prove its value lateron: software configuration management (SCM), using tools such as SCCS, RCS, CVS, SVN, git, you name it.

Hm, my mind boggles - in my book, SCM is a tad more than just a revision system, Software Configuration Management is more a tool for system administration, rather than software development. SCM also include automated building and testing of software (hudson, jenkins, codeship, cruisecontrol...), change control with peer reviewing before deployment (puppet, chef, cfengine ...) Of course, using such tools can also be usefull for developers too, and these days I dont know any coders who don't at least use a revision control system.