Restructure of CVS
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For those of you who have been looking on the CVS, you probably will have noticed a few changes in the CVS.. mostly the fact that its been completely rearranged.. The changes were made so that it is now easier for people to install driver on demand.. The server files have been put in their own directories, same as the other files, and the submit driver script, as long as development docs are in their own directory..
Of course, you probably dont want to touch the CVS at the moment because the scripts currently dont comply with the state of the directories.. so while they will fulfill the dependencies, they wont copy the files into the right path.. Of course, since I'm also changing from perl to D programming language, anyone using the client no longer needs the perl dependencies..
Changing the client from Perl -> D
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Yes, you read right.. I decided that perl just isn't up to the task, so am changing to D.. Most of you are probably asking why I did such a move.. The reasons is that Perl is relatively slow, its more or less aging, and some of the things I wanted to do on it, like add DBUS, would require a major coding effort to get the libraries working. It will take a short time for me to change it to cya
What is D?
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D is a very new developmental programming language, developed by Digital Mars (http://www.digitalmars.com). Basically, it is like C/C++/C# on steroids, and porting C libraries to D is relatively trivial. D is also more immune to security flaws then C and C++.
What are the advantages of D, and why not Mono?
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Mono is a linux C# .NET library, that is often portrayed as a next generation language.. It is however, it is only portrayed by MS as a next gen language. Overall, it is a java clone, with a few small changes. D has all the advantages of C#, with the benefit of not being controlled by MS, so there are no possible legal problems, Designed to be cross platform, has a free compiler for both windows and linux (not really important though in my case..) and is basically the future of Linux. The legality of Mono is under debate still, and the truth is that even when they do catch up to MS's implementation, MS will just release another version, so it will always be a game of cat and mouse..
I know many people wont agree with me, but we shouldn't have to play cat and mouse with Microsoft forever, which is the main reason I didn't choose Mono, there is nothing that any major organisation can do that will affect the future of D, and the language is just as open source, as linux itself, making it the perfect choice.
So you dislike the Mono project?
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I never said I dislike it.. The mono programmers are doing an excellent job, I'm just saying that theres no point pursuing a language which is designed by a company who want to wipe unix/linux off the planet, especially when there are other languages available, which are considered better alternatives to C#..
So what changes will I see as a user?
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For starters, you will need to install a D compiler now to install, however, the auto install script will handle that automatically probably. Driver on demand will take less RAM, and run quicker when it does run, however, if it compiles a driver though, your system will still get jumpy regardless, just for not as long (I might try to make it so it can automatically change the niceness value so that installations run at low priority too).
Perhaps the biggest changes you'll see are ones which benefit you (the user), such as the easier implementation of DBUS, which will allow you to be notified on your desktop when a driver is installed..