[jazzplusplus-devel] Brief intro to the lists

[D.B. M. <db...@ho...>]

G'day all,

             This is merely a short(?)  email letting everyone know
a little about myself, how I ended up here, and what I hope
to accomplish in my time here.

In case you missed it, I am an Australian. I am actually a
qualified motor-mechanic, have tickets in quality assurance
and control operations, and I like to study human sociology
in my spare time. I've also worked in electronics R&D and
production arenas. I am '50-something' years old (;

It would be in the order of 10years or so ago that I first became
interested in the jazz++ application, and about that time I also
joined jazzplusplus-user mailing list. Myself being a linux user,
the building of jazz++ all that time ago was...'difficult' to say the
least. I was initially going to ask list questions about this very
difficultly...right about the the time project itself was in decline.

As Kevin C. and others will attest, the jazzplusplus-user list
has been a very quiet place, for a rather long time. When Pete's
request for power-users to test out new builds hit the list, I was
actually in the throws of moving house...so I was a bit late getting
onto that testing. However, I did get around to it, and I might say
that I was both amazed and enthused to discover that everything
compiled correctly. I sent an email to Pete recounting that very
experience, along with a small critique of website instructions
given to achieve this.

Since then, Pete and myself have had a detailed private email
discussion about the website content, documentation in general,
and right about the time I thought 'can I help?' , Pete had a very
similar notion...'would you like to help?'....and here I am! We have
of course moved that private discussion onto the lists as we get
things co-ordinated between us.

Pete was hoping that I join the developers list as well as the users
list, and I have now made that so. I will primarily be working on
documentation generation & proofing tasks. If anyone has any
comments or requests about this area of the project, feel free to
raise a hand -- comments and critiques both good and bad very
welcome.

I can also do any (linux..) testing required on ix86 in both 32 and
64 bit flavors, using Debian 4.0 installations. I can also test on
this station, a non-mainstream linux 64bit x86 with no 32bit-compat
system. In a happy future where a sanctioned release of jazz++
becomes available, I could produce binary packages for Debian.

Okay...what do I hope to accomplish in my time here?

First off the rank, is to straighten and correct the jazz++ website
texts. The aim is for correctness and clarity within the website. I
believe this task is almost complete.

Secondly...and as expounded to Pete in one of our private emails,
users of jazz++ on the Windows platform have really got it easy.
That is to say, no matter what soundcard hardware these systems
have fitted, the user will have a MIDI 'softsynth' as part of that
system makeup. Even the most inexperienced Windows user will
have little trouble downloading and installing jazz++, and having
it create sound first up 'out of the box' as it were.

The linux experience is not so straight forward....in fact, getting
and compiling jazz++ from svn is actually the -easy- part now.

Getting it to actually make any sound, is another matter again,
and unless the user has a hardware-based MIDI/synth soundcard
(or 'real' MIDI hardware), then they will have to setup their own
'softsynth' implementation before they can hear the replay of....
..ie; 'jazz.mid' (or any other MIDI track for that matter).

I am of the belief that normal, average and inexperienced users
of linux have no idea about such things - they expect their linux
systems to have a builtin MIDI 'softsynth'  just like a Windows
system has.

I am also of the belief that the lack of this 'native' MIDI 'softsynth'
support in linux, has in some way been participle to jazz++ (and
other linux/MIDI projects) falling by the wayside.  Does anyone
else share this belief?

Ergo, I plan to create some documentation for inclusion on the
jazz++ website, to explain these things to potential users who
might not know about such things. I plan to write a set of
instructions that hopefully enables such inexperienced/casual
users of linux to build, install and setup their own 'softsynth'
implementation as quickly and simply as possible. My aim here
is to make the linux experience with jazz++ as closely akin to
the Windows experience as possible -- the linux path might
require a bit more work, but I want that work as easy as
possible for (inexperienced) linux users to complete successfully.

Beyond that, I want to test and document jazz++'s setup
and interoperability with -other- linux MIDI based applications.

Beyond that...(??)...who knows, but I'm always open to suggestions!!

Finally, I wish to thank those jazzplusplus-user list members who
responded to my call for a listening head-count -- it's comforting
to know I'm not totally alone on that list!!


Kind regards to all,

Donald B

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