Re: What is an SDK

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Bert Peers wrote:

> Any thoughts on this ?  Should LGDC list just about everything ?
> Or should we limit ourselves to the "serious" stuff ?  But then what
> is serious : large files, large teams ?  How could we point
> developers interested in contributing to new but promising SDKs
> (where Clanlib, Crystal Space etc all began one day) if we skip
> the small ones ?  If we don't skip them, how do we prevent that
> visitors drown in a database so large that they might as well just
> have hit "+linux +games +sdk" in altavista ?....

I like the approach that "linux games tome" takes - where things
are treated as "news items" for a few days after they first
appear. The sidebars to the left of that page (http://happypenguin.org)
get the names of the dozen or so packages that were mentioned or
reviewed or updated most recently.

This means that packages that are actually used, would tend to
hang around on that side bar because people are continually
posting reviews and/or the development of the package is
fast and there are lots of updates.

No matter how outdated something is - you can still find it
with appropriate search criteria.

This scheme is fair to everyone because there are no arbitary
judgements made by the maintainer.  Packages that are used
and actively maintained get prominance, things that appear
and are not used or maintained sink to the mud at the bottom
of the pond.

On the other hand, if you WANT a DOS A000H handler library,
then an appropriate search request will haul it out of the
depths and it'll appear again - briefly and then sink to
the bottom where it belongs.

This scheme depends on reviewers and a certain degree of
honesty from anxious package designers - but it seems to
work OK over on happypenguin.

-- 

Steve Baker                (817)619-2657 (Vox/Vox-Mail)
Raytheon Systems Inc.      (817)619-2466 (Fax)
Work: sjbaker@hti.com      http://www.hti.com
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