2010-10-17, 08:51
Just wanted to say that I love the availability of so much information in the forums, but at the same time, too much information can also lead to information overload for all involved, from noobs like myself to hardcore developers. As we are in Dharma beta 3 by this point and there is so much information that has either gone stagnant or been rendered redundant (by the many brilliant coders who have put so much effort into making XBMC the best damn media center ever), perhaps it might be a good idea to begin organizing some of this information, archiving that which is only applicable to older builds, and cleaning up the format so that we as a community can move forward into the future of modern home theater.
What I'm suggesting is that we update the forums to separate the old from the new first, and then organize the new information in a much more user friendly format for both noobs looking to learn to use xbmc to hardcore coders trying to keep up with the latest buzz about building their add-ons.
I think that it would be a good idea to divide the forums into functions, while keeping the separation between help and support, development, and general conversation. Perhaps in the subforum for help and support, it might be rational to isolate each function that xbmc provides, and develop subforums for those items (such as programming remotes, finding new add-ons, integrating backend programs, configuring skins, etc.) At the same time, in the development forum, it might be good to concentrate on different functions which xbmc provides. Functions such as file support, pvr development, and others. Also, Perhaps a specific section dedicated solely to log files could be linked to from the separate subforums in order to not distract from the communication aspect of the discussions regarding bugs and development issues with a big window full of code. Doing so would allow it to easily be opened in a separate window and viewed in sync while reading the forum discussion you are taking part in, allowing you to retain the context of why you are reading the code in the first place as you move through it.
All I'm saying is that the current system is rapidly becoming more and more xenophobic and as a result, I think it's probable that this is hampering overall development, as well as probably eating up a lot of server space with frivolous and repeat conversations. I have seen many instances where developers or those who've been around have redirected questions from both noobs and developers alike to the proper forum because it had simply been bumped off the first few pages by a quagmire of repeated code copied into trivial threads.
Feel free to hammer me with insults for being a noob and a dbag for bringing this up. I have much respect for all of you developers who have worked hard to bring us this amazing system, and I hope to be able to contribute back to the effort in some way other than the money I've donated...
Btw, if you're a noob like me, enjoying this software without knowing anything about programming, maybe you should think about how much effort is going into all of this and consider making a donation to the people who are making your living room that much more awesome with every keystroke...
What I'm suggesting is that we update the forums to separate the old from the new first, and then organize the new information in a much more user friendly format for both noobs looking to learn to use xbmc to hardcore coders trying to keep up with the latest buzz about building their add-ons.
I think that it would be a good idea to divide the forums into functions, while keeping the separation between help and support, development, and general conversation. Perhaps in the subforum for help and support, it might be rational to isolate each function that xbmc provides, and develop subforums for those items (such as programming remotes, finding new add-ons, integrating backend programs, configuring skins, etc.) At the same time, in the development forum, it might be good to concentrate on different functions which xbmc provides. Functions such as file support, pvr development, and others. Also, Perhaps a specific section dedicated solely to log files could be linked to from the separate subforums in order to not distract from the communication aspect of the discussions regarding bugs and development issues with a big window full of code. Doing so would allow it to easily be opened in a separate window and viewed in sync while reading the forum discussion you are taking part in, allowing you to retain the context of why you are reading the code in the first place as you move through it.
All I'm saying is that the current system is rapidly becoming more and more xenophobic and as a result, I think it's probable that this is hampering overall development, as well as probably eating up a lot of server space with frivolous and repeat conversations. I have seen many instances where developers or those who've been around have redirected questions from both noobs and developers alike to the proper forum because it had simply been bumped off the first few pages by a quagmire of repeated code copied into trivial threads.
Feel free to hammer me with insults for being a noob and a dbag for bringing this up. I have much respect for all of you developers who have worked hard to bring us this amazing system, and I hope to be able to contribute back to the effort in some way other than the money I've donated...
Btw, if you're a noob like me, enjoying this software without knowing anything about programming, maybe you should think about how much effort is going into all of this and consider making a donation to the people who are making your living room that much more awesome with every keystroke...