Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23

[Tim Cross]

Kenny Hitt writes:
 > Hi.
 > Just to clarify something: my attitude isn't directed at any of the people who have asked me
 > questions about my Orca crash.  My attitude comes from the fact I can debug
 > Linux kernel code but can't debug a fucking gnome screen reader.
 > In my opinion, switching to Python from C was a mistake for a screen reader.
 > 
 >           Kenny
 > 
 > On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 05:26:13AM -0500, Kenny Hitt wrote:
 > > Hi.
 > > On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 10:16:36AM +0000, Valdis wrote:
 > > > ...
 > > > > Actually, that isn't my problem with Gnome.  My problem is lack of stability
 > > > and slow response.
 > > > > My time in Gnome usually ends when Orca crashes and nothing I try can get it
 > > > to restart.  At that
 > > > > point, anything in the Gnome session is lost.  My only option is to kill the
 > > > Xserver and clean
 > > > ...
 > > > can you start orca with wollowing command:
 > > > orca >~/orca.log 2>&1 &
 > > > 
 > > > And then check what appears in the log file?
 > > > 
 > > no,  when it crashes, nothing I do can get it to restart.  Before you ask, it isn't a tts
 > > issue since speech-dispatcher is still up and running.
 > > I've been running Linux for 10 years now, so I'm not your normal stupid Windows user.
 > > I know how to debug problems.  Like I said in my earlier post, if this were a C program
 > > I would already have filed the bug report.  The fact you can't easily debug a Python
 > > app is a big weakness in Orca.
 > > I don't have enough disk space to just leav the debug options in Orca enabled either, so this
 > > will likely be a bug that won't get resolved any time soon.
 > > 
 > >           Kenny
 > > 
 > 

I disagree that switching from C to python was a mistake. While I personally
don't like python as a language and C was always my favorite language, I
wonder if what is really frustrating for you is really that your more familiar
with C and its debugging techniques. From a technical perspective, they are really
equivalent. In the end, it just comes down to 0 and 1. Having worked with many
different languages, I do know that an average python, perl, ruby, java etc
programmer will be more productive and produce more reliable code than an
average C programmer. C is a wonderful language, but is much easier to shoot
yourself in the foot with than something like python. 

Yes, a team of really good C programmers cold probalby rpoduce a really nice
Orca, but do we have such a team and how long would it take? On the other
hand, a team of average python prorammers will likely be more productive and
the code will likely be more stable. 

These days, you are more likely to find competant python programmers than C
programmers. An important part of any software project is maintainability. The
fact we have more python programmmers available probably means Orca is worked
on by more people than it would be if it was all in C. 

Tim


-- 
Tim Cross
tcross at rapttech.com.au

There are two types of people in IT - those who do not manage what they 
understand and those who do not understand what they manage.