@Lynx

Thanks for the encouragement! Indeed, I intend to steer the students towards writing their final project reports in such a way, that they will serve as tutorials which can be used by others. Damn, I'm so excited about this!

@nzv58l

Quote:

I think the following line needs to be rethought. It sounds too risky, like it is on the brink of dying. Mentioning it is a new OS is fine, but mentioning anything like survival may raise some doubt. I would word it as something like that it offers a unique oportunity for students to make a real world impact on an up and comming OS. That way it sounds a bit more optomistic rather than it might not survive.

I agree, and so therefore I've updated the mail to the following:

Quote:

Dear Lakmal, As per the email below, Fatin has suggested that I contact you with regards to securing some money from the college teaching fund. I am interested in ordering some software development kits for a new and promising operating system called AmigaOS4. Here's why... As you will probably be aware, most of the projects being offered in the Electronics Department are pretty much either DSP, or communications based, with practically nothing in software - even though, with two years of C/C++/software design, one would believe that programming is a very important skill that the students are acquiring from our degree programmes. Therefore I am hoping to offer about 5 or 6 third year projects for the coming session, all software based. The projects will involve the porting of various libraries/applications over to this new OS - AmigaOS4. AmigaOS is a very powerful, but streamlined and efficient OS which runs extremely well on *very* modest hardware requirements by today's standards. However, as it is brand new, it doesn't yet have many basic applications. The projects I am going to offer will tackle this problem, as they will involve porting some key open source applications/libraries to the new OS. This will allow students to apply the knowledge they have acquired in my lectures to a real-life programming problem, in an environment with modest computing power, thereby forcing them to develop solutions that are as efficient as possible. They will also learn the basics of what is required when one ports from one OS to another, as well as develop a knowledge of the workings of the source and destination operating systems. In addition, offering these projects will provide KCL students with a unique opportunity to make a real world impact on an up and coming new operating system. A fully configured development kit costs in the region of about £900, which includes all the hardware and software necessary for us to start work immediately. I would hope that we could purchase at least 2 or 3 such kits. How would I go about making a proper application, and what do you think are the chances that this money would be released? Regards, Piyush

We shall work from this new revised email. More suggestions/ideas people...

@captainmoomoo

I haven't taken the time to read through the entire thread, so this may have already been mentioned. A really good side-benefit to assigning porting projects to AmigaOS4 (as opposed to other OS's) you can be assured that none of your students would be able to submit the work of others, since our small community is already aware of all the software that has been developed for OS4 (just check OS4Depot).

I would think that students would more easily be able to plagiarize if your assignments would be given for Linux, Windows, Mac, or even BeOS.

@PEB

Yes, this is indeed an excellent point. In fact, it has been known for my students to 'outsource' their programming assignments to as far as Iran! If only they were so clever in their actual studies...

If their project was to develop/port for AmigaOS, I'm pretty sure that no programmer from the mainstream industry would be able to help without having taken the time and effort to do his homework.

@PEB

I agree and also that any contribution the Amiga community however big or small will be greatly appreaciated and should make the students really feel like they have achieved something.

_________________
A1XE G4 800mhz,512mb,Radeon9200,SonyDRU-510A and 800a,ESI Juli@, Sil680, WiFi.

@captainmoomoo
Best wishes this comes through!

I might mention the fact that the hardware is also capable of running PPC Linux as well, so may see some 'dual use' benefit- which may mean something to the bean counters...

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@captainmoomoo

Your project does indeed sound great

I hope for the best for you and the project

Cheers
Juzz

_________________
AmigaOne Owner since 2002.
The first person to get a Linux installer running on the AmigaOne :-

I don't really like this idea.

I spent a long time on the dole (unemployed) after my computing degree and I felt afterwards that it should've been a bit more modern and vocational. Not based around the pet interests of individual lecturers - things like the Eiffel language spring to mind. Yes, you can learn core programming on an Amiga, but you can also learn it on Windows.

Some computer science lecturers are unwilling to sacrifice purity or excellence for the real world, and I think you have to make that compromise when you're guiding someone who will leave uni with sackful of debt and a career to find.

So while it sounds good for the Amiga, I'm not sure it would reach enough people to make a difference to the Amiga scene, or do wonders for those individuals.

Sorry to be negative.

Chris

Last edited by clebin on 20-May-2005 at 01:59 AM.

@clebin

As a former employer, I would prefer to see sombody who has learned "outside the box" than just the ho hum routine. I've never placed any significance on Uni qualifications for the simple reason that anyone can memorise a book.

But give me sombody that has had to use their brain because their course work being imaginative then thats a differant story.

@clebin

That happens in most professions.


For example... I spent a thousand pounds getting my class one license (20 years ago), When I got it no one would employ me..

o experience then no job ... no job, then no experience !! (And the country/world was in a deep recession anyway)

I had to work a month for nothing (holiday relief) to get a job on a little rigid vehicle.

Foot in the door though.

_________________
******************************************
I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

******************************************

@clebin

Most of the people who have computing degree's that I know, are dullards.
I started a degree course last year, and it was pathetic, the things they were learning on that course I had done in my GCSE's, and was a complete waste of my employer's and my time, @ which my employer agreed.

They have no imagination, and can only think one way, and cannot think outside the box as druidpoet has mentioned.

The more diverse the education, the better the student will have an understanding of how to make solutions from a wider range of mind-sets.

_________________
Dark Lord Design Wicked Solutions For Damned Problems

@clebin

Quote:

I spent a long time on the dole (unemployed) after my computing degree and I felt afterwards that it should've been a bit more modern and vocational. Not based around the pet interests of individual lecturers - things like the Eiffel language spring to mind. Yes, you can learn core programming on an Amiga, but you can also learn it on Windows.

You make a valid point. This is one thing that I must consider in order for me to be fair to the students. But I believe that they are getting the best of both worlds through the degree programmes we offer:

1. For the first year they learn C, and then C++ in the second year. They do all this on Linux machines. Those who are late to class, have the short straw and have to use the remaining windows machines

2. When they enter the third year, they will soon have the opportunity to put their skills to the test in a real programming problem - at the moment they do not, be that environment Linux, Windows, or Amiga. Now, the projects I'm going to offer will be geared around the porting of applications from one OS to another. In order for this to work, the student will have to know what is actually going on in the host OS's version (i.e. understand the API's), as well as learn how to code for the Amiga. So they get both.

I think this actually makes the proposal not only a good idea for the Amiga and our community, but it's also fair to the students. There is not way that I would ever want to do an injustice to my students...

@captainmoomoo

Quote:

There is not way that I would ever want to do an injustice to my students...

So you are justified.. Are you ancient as well?

(Stop with the KLF jokes already! - Steve)

@DruidPoet

Quote:

Are you ancient as well?

huh?

@captainmoomoo

Quote:

The creative partnership of Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D, Time Boy) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock, Lord Rock), mainly appreciated for their ground breaking dance music from 1987-92, under the names 'The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu , ''The Kopyright Liberation Front' ('The KLF'), {Snip}

Sorry, but everytime I see your name, their ruddy songs keep bouncing around in my head.

Last edited by DruidPoet on 20-May-2005 at 11:07 AM.

@captainmoomoo

KHTML is another good porting candidate I believe. And GTK as has already been mentioned.
Besides that, talk to the Amizilla and OpenOffice coders, and see what they are lacking still,
to help them out with some stuff would be good as the students would emidiatly see their work
getting used by 'real' amiga coders, for real.
KHTML would be very good too, as it would be used by AWeb and possible other new Amiga browsers.

And, I also must say, this is a kick ass promising project! Good luck, and thanks for having the courage to actually make it happen!

_________________
AOS4 Betatester, Peg2, G4@1ghz, Radeon 9250 256mb, 1gb RAM.

http://www.asciiarena.com
http://www.uprough.net

@DruidPoet

ok... I didn't know this. I made the name 'captainmoomoo' during my days as an undergrad, in the same uni that I teach now. I had started this stoopid society, call the Mad Cow Society, and I was the president, Captain Moo Moo from the planet Mad Cow...

And yes, despite that, I still managed to graduate with 1st class honours!

@spotUP

Quote:

Besides that, talk to the Amizilla and OpenOffice coders, and see what they are lacking still

Good idea spotUP. I shall do this as soon as my talks with my uni people are over. I hope I hope I hope...

@captainmoomoo

First off, I applaud your initiative to attempt to bring your students
an alternative view on mainstream programming. Speaking as one
who has successfully built a career as a software engineer from the
springboard of right-thinking technology called the Amiga, I can
assure you that even a small amount of insight into the Amiga way
of doing things will be very valuable for your students in the future.

From a hardware and software resource perspective, especially
if you are targeting AmigaOS4 with a limited number of actual A1s,
I would suggest the use of cross-compilers on your existing Linux
hardware, as well as shared network drives for the code base, hosted
on Linux and mounted from the AmigaONE test machines. Also,
your students could manage their projects with version control
systems like CVS or Subversion, again hosted by Linux machines
and accessed by Amiga clients.

This environment of off-loaded compiling and file storage has many
significant advantages over having your students jump into a completely
foreign, and possibly even emulated, environment when they are already
familiar with working (editing, compiling, etc.) on Linux.

1.) SPEED. Since you can not [yet] build an AmigaONE with dual processors
and local UltraSCSI 320 RAID arrays, cross-compiling your Amiga code on
faster "commodity" hardware, can be much more productive. For example,
the latest version of the SDK Browser compiles natively on my A1-XE
(800Mhz G4) in a little over 4 minutes, while it cross-compiles on my
dual processor 1.2Ghz Linux server in around 11 seconds. Since the
Amiga is able to mount the exact same file area on the Linux server
where this code is being built, I can literally cross-compile, test,
make a change, and compile again a dozen times in the same amount of
time it takes to wait for the native compile to complete even once.
(Note that final compiles are better done natively as they can link
to the shared newlib library and are therefore smaller. This may not
be an issue with later builds of the cross-compilers.)

2.) BACKUP. Remember that [as of right now] AmigaOS4 is still in active
development, and as such is a potential risk in terms of maintaining
the only copy of any project solely on a local Amiga partition. This
is not to say that AmigaOS4 pre-releases are not stable, they are,
far better than some Linux distributions I've worked with in fact.
The point is simply that you should not trust any project to live only
on one machine and one harddrive.

3.) ACCESS. With the code base (and CVS or SVN server) hosted on
a dedicated server (e.g. Linux) and with shared home directories
available via Samba and or NFS, you can access the code from nearly
any machine. Use your editor of choice, make backups from a central
source, etc.

I know you are a ways away from the technical setup for this project
as yet, but I thought I would mention this now while you are considering
the overall requirements, as it is a proven system which works very well
for us here.

Best Regards, and don't hesitate to ask for any help.

Jamie

EDIT: Ah, good my sig is working again.

Last edited by JamieKrueger on 20-May-2005 at 12:49 PM.

_________________
Jamie Krueger
BITbyBIT Software Group LLC
jamie@bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com
PLEASE NOTE: I only speak for myself and my company,
and am not a spokesperson for Amiga Inc.

@captainmoomoo

Your story is madder than possibly even The KLF


For that I salute you.

@JamieKrueger

Quote:

2.) BACKUP. Remember that [as of right now] AmigaOS4 is still in active development, and as such is a potential risk in terms of maintaining the only copy of any project solely on a local Amiga partition. This is not to say that AmigaOS4 pre-releases are not stable, they are, far better than some Linux distributions I've worked with in fact. The point is simply that you should not trust any project to live only on one machine and one harddrive.

True, however my fleeting experience with OS4 allowed me to use my lexar media USB flash key successfully.

@captainmoomoo
I hope this all works for you , and who knows you might have a couple of converts! Programming for the Amiga, somebody is bound to get attached to the thing, We all see it thats why we are all still here, right?

-Jamie