Wouldn't be better to concentrate on developing one IDE, than many similar?

[saugumas]

Just wondering..
The quality of IDE would improve if there wouldn't be many similar projects, but one good organized project.
What do you think?

[jacek]

Yes, but competition is also good.

[Gopala Krishna]

This is not perfect world.
Why do we have gnome and kde ?
Why krita when gimp already flourishes ?
....

Ofcourse the competition is a good thingy.

[saugumas]

Yes, competition is good thing, but this is FOSS software, so it's important to organize projects as good as possible, because there is not many FOSS developers and their time is limited. Maybe just one project would be bad idea, but situation what we have now is: few reasonable IDE projects, and quite many smaller, less mature projects, developing almost the same functionality as in other parallel projects..


Regards,
Kestas

[pasnox]

It was the goal i have wanted when i released first Qt4DS version to community ( old name of Monkey Studio Project ), instead of helping me, many guys starts their own, why now i will ask to focus everybody in a totally new project as they want not ?!
Only fmc with it s edyuk project was as old as monkey studio, currently we are working together to have the most compatible features, we have already spoke about merging, need now see how it will evoluate.

@ All NEW IDE Creator : FOSS is good, but sometimes FOSS is bad, you want glory, but you have nothing, I'm open, but i will not be the man who will try the first step, think about this.

P@sNox,

[saugumas]

Merging few projects would be great idea!
Also before starting new project or developing old one it is very important to organize project well, make a good roadmap, plan, for example guys from monodevelop did a survey about the project: http://www.monodevelop.com/Survey_Results_2007

[fullmetalcoder]

Yes, competition is good thing, but this is FOSS software, so it's important to organize projects as good as possible, because there is not many FOSS developers and their time is limited. Maybe just one project would be bad idea, but situation what we have now is: few reasonable IDE projects, and quite many smaller, less mature projects, developing almost the same functionality as in other parallel projects..

This issue is being discussed over and over and no solution surfaced until now for a couple of reasons :

• coders stick to their project. there is some sense of ownership/paternity that make it extremely difficult for one to part with the result of hours of work
• merging is not possible. codebases are way to different : plugins/no plugins, strong Qt focus or will to allow easy extension, more or less reusable code, different coding standards... the only options IMO would be to either choose one of the project and forget about the others (I don't think anyone would go for this) or to start something new from scratch (reusing of course the result of all previous experimentations from all projects) but this would be a long and tedious way
• leaders want to lead... I'm not sure it is the best way to express my point but what I mean is simple : you can't just bring coders (and especially project leaders) together like that. They have different ideas on where to go, how to get there, ...

There are many more (smaller) issues I did not mention but I guess I made it clear enough that a merging is unlikely to happen soon.

Don't get me wrong. It *could* happen and *might* then improve the things as far as users are concerned. I myself would appreciate such a merging if things were defined clearly at start and a motivated team was formed. However it is doubtless that those considered by pasnox as "newcomers" are not willing to get involved in such a merging... They would have contributed to "elder" projects instead of starting new ones otherwise...

[saugumas]

• coders stick to their project. there is some sense of ownership/paternity that make it extremely difficult for one to part with the result of hours of work
• merging is not possible. codebases are way to different : plugins/no plugins, strong Qt focus or will to allow easy extension, more or less reusable code, different coding standards... the only options IMO would be to either choose one of the project and forget about the others (I don't think anyone would go for this) or to start something new from scratch (reusing of course the result of all previous experimentations from all projects) but this would be a long and tedious way
• leaders want to lead... I'm not sure it is the best way to express my point but what I mean is simple : you can't just bring coders (and especially project leaders) together like that. They have different ideas on where to go, how to get there, ...

Don't get me wrong. It *could* happen and *might* then improve the things as far as users are concerned. I myself would appreciate such a merging if things were defined clearly at start and a motivated team was formed. However it is doubtless that those considered by pasnox as "newcomers" are not willing to get involved in such a merging... They would have contributed to "elder" projects instead of starting new ones otherwise...

I agree, that not all ideas should be the same of all developers, but it is very positive thing, because we can talk and find out best strategy for any open-source project.
Users will appreciate good quality and supported projects, as well as you would appreciate good quality open-source programs, which you using often, written by others.
Collaboration has another very positive side - it prevents projects form dieing, because if one person is busy and can't contribute to project, others will do.
About leading: I think we shouldn't give in our ego, we need to listen to all developers views, and together make strategy, it's in FOSS ideology - we are developing best of we can, and using software best of open-source can develop.