[mythtv] Mythtv Gui

Stuart Morgan stuart at tase.co.uk
Fri Apr 20 23:48:46 UTC 2007


On Friday 20 April 2007 23:47:30 Colin Guthrie wrote:
> Yes both of these things would be great IMO. I know it's not the most
> important feature in terms of the core functionality of myth but these
> are the kind of things that I was referring to when I brought up Apple's
> TV product. Judging by the pace of Apple developments it wont be long
> before they add new features. I'm never going to be a Mac/Apple user and
> am a die hard Myth fan for many reasons beyond the fact that it actually
> works very well, but in terms of first impressions to people who have
> never seen it before, myth has very much lost the edge. If we want to
> encourage Myths take up and use, then the eye candy part is quite
> important.

I think that's the misconception. I've certainly never got the feeling that 
Isaac or any of the other devs view mythtv as a project which has to 
be 'sold' to a wider community. We're doing it for ourselves and if other 
people like it then that is just a bonus.

If users want flashy graphics and don't want to wait, then they can start 
writing that code. When I started using mythtv there was a quote on the front 
page of the website which said something like "Mythtv is a project written by 
developers for developers".

I honestly believe that even were mythtv to start losing hundreds of users 
tomorrow, writing the code for those flashy graphics would still not be a 
priority. Mythtv isn't going to be driven by user demand and the only way to 
have an affect on it's development is to become a contributor.

Writing a patch really isn't that difficult if they're prepared to put some 
time and effort into it. They don't have to start big, plenty of patches 
amount to no more than a dozen lines of code. People who supply patches have 
my respect more than anyone who just talks about what "should" or "must" be 
done. It's an easy excuse to say they have no knowledge of programming - just 
this last month or so on IRC I've been pleased to see people with no previous 
experience taking the time to learn a little of the basics, to look at the 
existing code and submitting patches to Trac.

I should point out that there are just as many users, if not more, who program 
for a living and have never submitted a single patch. They should be ashamed 
of themselves. :)
-- 
Stuart Morgan


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