• 56 Posts
  • 355 Comments
Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: February 10th, 2024

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  • A tip that might help: For audio and subtitles, try using Track Selection settings instead of Track List settings, and once you have all your choices selected, save them as a preset. Then when queuing episodes, choose that preset.

    Also, consider doing a test run on part of a single episode before queuing up a batch. (Choose a time range of just a minute, for example.) That way you can check the result quickly, and adjust if necessary, before committing to the whole job.

    Finally, I recommend using Add To Queue for each episode, then Start once they’re all queued.


  • I’m just pointing out some specifics of the prerequisites,

    Yes, that’s fair.

    which the article did a pretty bad job of highlighting imo, and how this is not the miraculous solution it’s somewhat touted to be.

    It would also be fair to acknowledge that hackaday is not touting miracles, but simply knows their audience. One would have to be very new to hardware hacks like this to be unaware that preconditions almost always exist. Older firmware is one of the most common preconditions.











  • I’ve been thinking of OSS and source available as interchangeable.

    Nope; they are distinct terms. Source-available is just a general way of saying that the source code can be (legally) acquired. It doesn’t meet the standards of open-source software (OSS) or Free Software, both of which guarantee certain rights and freedoms, such as permission to make and redistribute changes to the source code.

    https://opensource.org/osd

    https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#fs-definition

    It’s understandable that it might be confusing, though, since some people use the terms casually without understanding that they have specific meanings, and since both phrases use English words that could be interpreted to mean something else. (For example, “free software” doesn’t mean software whose price is zero, and “open-source software” doesn’t mean software whose source code is published in the open.)

    Edit to add: Like many English words, the context in which they are used affects their meaning. The field of software is such a context.

    But now it kind of seems to me that free software is interchangeable with open source software. Is it just a matter of branding?

    The two overlap, but are not exactly the same. The umbrella term FOSS evolved to encompass both, because there is so much overlap between them that having such a term is often useful.





  • Most of what comes to mind has already been said by others, but I want to add one thing…

    the overall code seems so convoluted to me that I don’t even know where to start to analyze a solution, even though if it’d probably take ten lines to implement.

    One of the most important things to understand about software development is that (outside of small hobby projects) the vast majority of the work is not writing code. Most of the hours will be spent on a combination of other tasks, including:

    • Understanding the desired behavior
    • Understanding what has been tried before
    • Understanding what has and hasn’t worked well in past attempts
    • Considering unexpected ways in which the software might legitimately be used
    • Imagining needs that might emerge in the future
    • Imagining problems/circumstances that might emerge in the future
    • Devising a solution that you think will work well
    • Predicting limitations of your design
    • Communicating the reasons and goals behind your design choices
    • Listening to feedback from others, and understanding it
    • Collaborating with others to find common ground
    • Conducting research to prove your assumptions or answer open questions
    • Learning the ins and outs of surrounding code that is only tangentially related to yours
    • Learning unfamiliar tools
    • Learning unfamiliar languages
    • Learning unfamiliar algorithms and data structures
    • Revising your design
    • Coming up with succinct and clear names for things
    • Testing your implementation (making sure it works now)
    • Devising and writing automated tests for your implementation (making sure it will keep working when someone else changes something)
    • Composing comments to explain why non-obvious things are done a certain way
    • Reformatting your code to fit the style of the project
    • Writing documentation, and rewriting it
    • Answering questions
    • Waiting for others to get back to you

    The time and effort required for all of this multiplies when modifying an existing codebase, and multiplies again when most of that code was written by other people. Shepherding a contribution from idea to final merge often requires not only technical skill, but also study, diplomacy, empathy, and immense patience.

    But I have no reference for how long a feature should take to implement in someone else’s code for the average Joe who does this for a living.

    It varies quite a lot. I have had dozen-line changes take months, and thousand-line changes take a day or two. Just know that if it’s taking much longer than you expected, that is completely normal. :)




  • I was replying to this exchange:

    Could mean FOSS but they keep the trademark.

    Sure, but that’s unlikely, given the wording. “Owner of the software” is fairly clear

    The article’s text said, “Winamp will remain the owner of the software”. That does not, in fact, preclude giving it a FOSS license, nor does retaining a related trademark. GP was correct. They can make it FOSS and keep the trademark and copyright. I don’t see any reason to think it unlikely.

    The creator doesn’t “surrender” their copyright, but someone can fork it and then have ownership of their version

    Forking someone’s copyrighted work does not change ownership of the rights in any jurisdiction that I know of. If you meant “ownership” in a difference sense, like maybe control over a derivative project’s direction, then I think choosing a different word would have made your meaning more clear.