Welcome to the final instalment of the KDE Goals retrospective interviews.

Check out my interview with Aleix where we talk about the “KDE is All About the Apps” Goal and generally about the KDE Goals initiative. See it here:

Thank you Aleix for the interview, and also thank you Jonathan - the initial Goal Champion for the goal! You can follow Aleix on his twitter, also his website.

If you haven’t seen them yet, the previous two interviews available: Consistency and Wayland.

Next week: the process of submitting the Goals begins! Be sure to check back to learn all about it!

Hi!

This is my second post during Google Summer of Code 2022.

GSoC community bonding period ends tomorrow.

During this time, I have tried playing around with LibQuotient by writing simple C++ apps to show details from a user's account. (joined rooms, filtering out spaces etc)

On NeoChat, I tried adding UI element to show user's spaces, which certainly didn't go well. The ListView would not show a scroll bar, no matter what. I faced another setback when I realized the code didn't use setContext to control UI (thats the way I'm accustomed to doing it).

This week, Tobias helped me out with these technical things over a call. I'm trying to implement them.

With the actual coding period starting in 2 days, I hope to show up tangible work.

Yesterday, the signing key of my OBS repositories has expired (I didn’t know they do). I have the validity extended now.

To fix errors with access to the repos, please download the updated key from OBS or direct from my website.

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2022-22.

8 reasons to ditch Chrome and switch to Firefox | PCWorld

Tags: tech, browser, privacy

Despite some flaws, I agree it remains the superior alternative.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/704687/8-reasons-to-ditch-chrome-and-switch-to-firefox.html

Programming in the Apocalypse

Tags: tech, programming, culture, low-tech

Good exercise of prospective for our field. I don’t subscribe to all the analyses in there but the value is in at least starting the conversation about it.

https://matduggan.com/programming-in-the/

Expert Talk: Managing Complexity in Software • Hadi Hariri & Kevlin Henney • GOTO 2022 - YouTube

Tags: tech, architecture, complexity

Interesting conversation around complexity in code bases. I especially like the point about imagination getting out of control and getting us into speculation. This is indeed often a reason for unwarranted complexity. That’s why you need to always keep the context in mind to make your choices. Also indeed fascinating to me is our ability to forget and reinvent something which was already there years ago. We really need more frameworks where we understand what’s going on all the way through…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7CfWtR-ECk&list=PLEx5khR4g7PJozVmHNpQTVrk1QRC7YaJu

How fast are Linux pipes anyway?

Tags: tech, linux, memory, optimization, performance, unix, system

Excellent deepdive about pipes, on the path to optimization we see how perf is used, how memory is managed by the kernel etc. Very thorough.

https://mazzo.li/posts/fast-pipes.html

Today’s Javascript, from an outsider’s perspective – Lea Verou

Tags: tech, javascript

Everyone loves a good rant about the Javascript ecosystem I guess.

https://lea.verou.me/2020/05/todays-javascript-from-an-outsiders-perspective/

What the f*ck Python? 😱

Tags: tech, python, programming, surprising

Excellent collection of surprising behaviors in Python. If stuck or wondering why something works in a surprising way to you, it’s a good place to look.

https://github.com/satwikkansal/wtfpython#section-strain-your-brain

systemfontstack

Tags: tech, web, fonts, css

Good list of system fonts to use in your CSS.

https://systemfontstack.com/

My Mistakes

Tags: tech, craftsmanship, tdd, refactoring

Excellent answer, really loves how humble Ron Jeffries writings usually are. I like how he doesn’t prescribe what to do, but instead describes what happens to him when he does something he shouldn’t (or doesn’t do something he should). He’s definitely human and slips like us all.

https://ronjeffries.com/articles/-z022/0222ff/my-mistakes/

Mob programming deep dive with Woody Zuill (The Changelog #488) |> Changelog

Tags: tech, mob-programming, craftsmanship, programming

Interesting interview which explores quite a bit mob programming, where it’s coming from, why Woody Zuill pushed for it, how it is done, etc. I didn’t expect his opinion on why he thinks the name being controversial actually helped spark the conversation around the practice… Very inspiring how he practiced for years to feel comfortable being on stage. I also love at how humble this person is through and through.

https://changelog.com/podcast/488

Asynchronous Communication is the Great Leveler in Engineering — Culture (2022)

Tags: tech, management, remote-working, asynchronous

Nice piece on how to handle asynchronous communication in a remote work setup.

https://shopify.engineering/asynchronous-communication-shopify-engineering

Guiding principle: consent over consensus

Tags: management, decision-making, community

To me that sounds an awful like the “lazy consensus” often applied in communities. Still this is indeed a good approach.

https://jchyip.medium.com/guiding-principle-consent-over-consensus-8aee08540d62

Has “Nudge” tempted us away from systemic solutions? | Tim Harford

Tags: psychology, science, politics

Good points of the problem with nudge backed “policies”… they’re pretty completely avoiding to address the difficult political questions.

https://timharford.com/2022/06/has-nudge-tempted-us-away-from-systemic-solutions/

Knots 3D

Tags: culture

Looks like a nice reference of knots for most occasions.

https://knots3d.com/

Bye for now!

Hi!

This is my first post during Google Summer of Code 2022.

I will be working on adding Spaces support to NeoChat. My mentors for the project are Carl Schwan and Tobias Fella. I have had two calls with them already, and gotten clarity on how I can get started with the work.

I will be posting blogs regularly on my website. To follow my progress, see my posts on my blog.

Hi Everyone

I am Samarth Raj, a second-year undergrad at KIIT University, India, with a computer science major. My project for adding new activities to GCompris has been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2022. I’ll be working as a contributor this summer.

Since the first year of college itself, I’ve always aspired to learn tech that would actually create an impact on people. And it was this time only when I got to know about “open source”. I feel because of open-source, college students who have no idea about what programming means (like me) can learn and contribute to industry-level projects with a little bit of hard work. In this way, we are learning about new technology by understanding its application at the same moment. Open source, in general, is a very practical way of learning. It can be slightly overwhelming at first, but with the help of people around us who are always ready to help, we start to get the hang of it.

I participated in the Season of KDE earlier this year, in which I added a new activity, “Left Right Click”. This was my first experience as an open-source contributor, and I cannot list the number of things I got to learn with the help of my mentors during this short period because the list is enormous.
One of my major learnings was to learn to understand different perspectives as this is a global software, so any improvement towards the application should be suitable for everyone.

In the coming months, I’ll be contributing to two activities in GCompris, one related to maths, “Using 10’s complements to add number“. It is a form of addition that relies on the use of 10s to add numbers, and the other is associated with grammar, “Grammatical analyse“. This activity aims to help users to gain a better understanding of ‘parts of speech.’
I’ve briefly described the project here in my proposal.

During the GSoC coding period, I’ll be posting bi-weekly blogs. The blogs will be concise and to the point. Along with the project, I wish to develop great communication with the community members.

I look forward to new learnings and great experiences ahead.

Connect with me –

LInkedIn | WordPress | GMail

Hello world! I’m restarting my blog as part of my Google Summer of Code (GSoC) project with KDE. I’m planning to write a few articles about my work implementing SVG export support in Krita.

Stay tuned!

Last weekend, on May 21st, some people (including me) met in Berlin for what I believe is the first in-person KDE sprint since you-know-what happened (there was LAS, but that’s not technically a KDE sprint). We met in KDAB’s office, which was incidentally also the location of the last in-person sprint before unamed things happened.

Photo by Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss.

During the sprint we set up a measurement lab for the KDE Eco initiative. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for application developers to measure the energy consumption of their applications. To do this a stable and reliable measurement system that is available over a long timespan is needed. KDAB kindly offered to host such a system in their office.

The measurement lab currently consists of two severl-years-old mid-range desktop computers. The first part of the sprint was a discussion about what software environment the PCs should run. There are various considerations for this. The “Blauer Engel” measurement critera recommend using Ubuntu 20.04 for the measurements. Staying close to these recommendations makes sense. However, we want to be able to easily test new versions of KDE software, which often requires newer system libraries than Ubuntu 20.04 provides. We discussed using Flatpak as a declarative and reproducible way to provision specific versions of KDE software and their dependencies independent from the operating system. In the end we settled for using KUbuntu 22.04 on one and with KDE Neon.

After wiring up the machines and installing the chosen operating systems I set the machines up for remote access using SSH and remote desktop (VNC). Other people set up the power measurement infrastructure and how to access its data. There are some finishing touches to be done, including access control, before we can make the lab available to the KDE community. Once that is done we will share how to get access and make use of the lab.

During the day people also worked on other topics like alternative power measurement devices and data visualization. Check the official sprint blog post and Volker’s blog post for more details.

Continuig the series from last week, here’s another interview with one of our Goal Champions.

This time, I’m interviewing Méven - the Goal Champion for Wayland. Check out the interview below:

Thanks to Méven for joining me for this interview. You can check out his blog at: http://www.bivouak.fr/.

See you next week with another retrospective!

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2022-21.

The EU Commission is planning automatic CSAM scanning of your private communication – or total surveillance in the name of child protection.

Tags: tech, politics, surveillance

The EU Commission is going down a very dangerous path. Clearly pushing the agenda of global surveillance behind false pretenses, not terrorism this time but “protecting children”. It’s usually one of those two excuses being used to justify such attack on privacy.

https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/eu-surveillance-csam/

Google has been DDoSing SourceHut for over a year

Tags: tech, google, go, performance, complexity

Debatable “feature”, bad implementation, dubious community handling… Clearly not a good example to follow from the Go space.

https://drewdevault.com/2022/05/25/Google-has-been-DDoSing-sourcehut.html

CrateDepression | Rust Supply-Chain Attack Infects Cloud CI Pipelines with Go Malware

Tags: tech, security, supply-chain, rust, ci

Interesting forensic of a supply chain attack targetting crates.io. Especially fascinating to me is how it then tries to target CI build environments as preparation for larger attacks.

https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/cratedepression-rust-supply-chain-attack-infects-cloud-ci-pipelines-with-go-malware/

The mindless tyranny of ‘what if it changes?’ as a software design principle - Blogomatano

Tags: tech, craftsmanship, architecture

A bit on the sarcastic side but there’s definitely some truth to it. This definitely goes against the YAGNI principle.

https://chriskiehl.com/article/the-tyranny-of-what-if-it-changes

Proper use of Git tags | Dan Aloni

Tags: tech, git

Good advices on using tags properly for versioning.

https://blog.aloni.org/posts/proper-use-of-git-tags/

The balance has shifted away from SPAs | Read the Tea Leaves

Tags: tech, web, browser, frontend, complexity

Interesting opinion. Indeed, as the browsers are packing more features they can deal with more frontend complexity themselves. This is an opportunity to reduce the amount of code in the frontend code at least for some use cases.

https://nolanlawson.com/2022/05/21/the-balance-has-shifted-away-from-spas/

The forgotten benefits of “low tech” user interfaces

Tags: tech, usability, low-tech, ux, complexity

An excellent reminder that usability wise, high-tech is not always the best path. It’s good to also evaluate low-tech options at every turn. This is important to know the pros and cons of all the options you can pick. There’s also an interesting point in there about how those more constrained technologies in fact force and help designers to focus on the most important user features.

https://uxdesign.cc/the-forgotten-benefits-of-low-tech-user-interfaces-57fdbb6ac83?gi=20c9b889b409

Pong

Tags: tech, electronics, gaming

Very cool reverse engineering of the schematics of the infamous Pong game. It had no software and no CPU either. Quite a feat.

https://www.falstad.com/pong/

Bye for now!