Centralization of graphical awesomeness

Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) raster at rasterman.com
Tue Oct 27 12:37:03 CET 2009


On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:11:04 +0100 DJDAS <djdas at djdas.net> said:

> Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote:
> > you show and immense amount of knowledge here, both of the hardware, of
> > software and graphics in general. i'm amazed. i shall take your advice as
> > you obviously are someone of massive experience. i see that people
> > reporting that its faster and better on a gta01 @ 266 mhz (2/3 the cpu
> > powerd), same screen and no glamo are obviously wrong. you indeed know much
> > more. the smooth rendering on a 206mhz strong arm is obviously just
> > incorrect and i'm a fool to think so. i shall be quiet and let your amazing
> > skills make everything blindingly fast and smooth.
> >   
> Given that I never said to be an expert but simple telling my point of

well.. you're telling the one that wrote the graphics code, that has read the
glamo hw docs, has worked on it long before freerunner was on sale, who has
written graphics code for many platforms, manye cpus of many varying levesl of
speed (from 7mhz 68k up), many gpu's from old console hardware to 3d gl... that
he's talking bullshit (and being very rude about it, providing no evidence,
numbers or anything else to back anything you say up) about exactly the things
he's deeply involved in. thus.. you must be an expert beyond my experience and
abilites.

you, sir, are rude. that much i definitely know about you. the rest. you have
no idea of what you speak. you showed it in your previous mail. your opinions
on this are the equivalent of me giving my opinions on tcp stack design.
worthless. the other people in this thread have actually read what i said and
gotten it right. but you, have not. you have simply resorted to an incredibly
rude and disrespectful outburst. with no provocation. if you are an IT manager,
i am amazed you got that far and stayed. it's one thing to be frank and be
factual. it's another to behave like you.

if you have something concrete to offer rather than being rude, insulting and
simply rubbishing things you know little about, then contribute. i have been
factual, realistic and constructive. i have stated that freerunner is a limited
platform. it's one of the slowest (if running at its native resolution i have
ever worked on, and i've worked on a fair few. there is a limited amount you'll
get out of it. and it's not an architecture you're going to see again. so how
much effort do you put into a 1 -off that will not gain more units in the
general user population over time? you find quick ways to make it do what you
want. i have constructively suggested those - 1. simplify theme so its solid
rects and text and it will look like qtopia.. and begin to run like qtopia
does. but it is NOT being used like that. people are using themes that have
scaled image backgrounds and buttons and list items with multiple layers of
graphics rendered on top of eachother. make this simple and.. speed will
follow. no one has to go change their toolkits and listen to you. the other
easy and feasible option is lower resolution - draw fewer pixels and you'll get
more speed. these are developers talking to other developers. i am telling 1.
the users and developers that insist on vga, that they are paying a high price
for their insistence. the hardware simply wasnt designed to be optimal on vga.
trust me. i've read the glamo docs. vga is the top LIMIT of its capabilities.
it's being stretched. these developers ALSO decide the themes they use as part
of building SHR for example. the default is a generic default - it's not tuned
for "really slow systems". tune away for what you have. i havent shut anyone
up. i have told them they are stuck with slow hardware. don't expect miracles.
make a sacrifice. the device, the theme or the resolution. choose the lamb for
the slaughtering.

enlightenment and illume have seen pretty close to zero attention since i left
openmoko. it's a BUSINESS CHOICE. no one is paying me to work on it. i am
getting paid to put EFL on significantly superior devices that handle it
wonderfully. everyone i talk to in the world of actually producing products,
and with whom i work, aim far beyond openmoko. they want gui's that are
smooth, silky, fluid and beautiful. they have ui designer requirements for
things like translucent lists with static backgrounds. EFL does for them what
no other toolkit can do. MEET BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS. if you like to use that
word. and it's doing that wonderfully for them. the benefit to the openmoko
users and community is that the work to improve things there gives them
improvements too. it also paves the way for when SHR and so on are fully ported
to better devices, like the palm pre for example. GTA02 in comparison to a palm
pre is a very very very weak device... except in 1 respect. screen resolution.

as for e17 not runing on any desktop acceptably. i really have to laugh at
that, as i have had it run acceptably on an hp mini-note 2133. 1 ghz via c3.
really slow. e is just fine on it. just compile and run. compiz doesn't even
start on it. so don't get me started in how wrong you are there. e runs on
beagleboards (omap3 - 600mhz) just fine. this is roughly an equivalent machine
to the netbook (give or take).

nothing i have said is "bullshit". it is all factual and based on imperative
results and engineering work. not being an "it manager" and being rude. you
have implicitly called me a liar and have also implicitly claimed i know not of
what i speak.

> view as an end user, and given that I don't want to start a flame, I 
> simply say that I work as an IT manager on embedded system since 2001, I 
> wrote code for palmtops, mobile phones and more embedded devices like 
> POS terminals and custom cards (always in C/C++), so I think I can speak 
> with a bit of knowledge.
> I'm NOT a graphic expert (never said this) so all my respect to people 
> who carve the bits and write graphic drivers and all the stuff rounding 
> graphic world.
> My considerations were a bit of "business-like" words, because I think 
> too many times you shut people complaints saying "you bought a shit*y 
> hardware so don't bother me" and I don't think it's a winning approach 
> (I won't say to a customer "you fool, you bought a bad phone so my 
> fantastic program doesn't work because of you").
> Technically speaking I didn't look at your code (and won't) so I don't 
> criticize how it's written/commented/optimized and so on, I criticize 
> your approach and, let me say, I would prefer you said something like "I 
> preferred to write some *specifically* for the Freerunner but someone 
> told me not to because of business choices" instead of "I tried to adapt 
> something working perfectly (which is not for me, indeed) on a loser 
> device" :)
> It's simply a matter of approach.
> I repeat nothing personal, just some suggestions ;)
> Bye.
> 
> 
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-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com




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