At their worst, developers can be intolerant of honestly-asked questions, too opaque with any documentation they provide, and dismissive of the real difficulties some users have with modern ways of distributing and maintain software.

What can be done to attract young people with programming skills to try their hand with RISC OS?

What can be done to attract young people with programming skills to try their hand with RISC OS?

I think the main reasons that young developers tend to develop for other OSes, is that any future employer is going to be looking for experience with Windows or to a lesser degree Mac. Which I think is a real shame. Whilst you do need these in this day and age. I believe that you should have the ability to program for any OS, and the thinking that goes into producing the program, that should matter.

an accessible Boot structure

...ARM Assembler are going to be of very limited help outside RISC OS.

When I say modern development tools, I'm of course not talking about compilers, C and C++ are supported with the excellent GCC port but a lot more is needed in modern development. GCCSDK offers a way towards that and a good one at that but still, if you're developing on Linux, Windows or Mac OS what's the incentive to develop for RISC OS?

I still check your website from time to time to look for updates about FahZhi Tracker or Equinox.

The only real alternative is retro-development similar to the still amazingly kicking C64 demo scene and that's hardly going to spark new life into RISC OS.

What an odd article, people still talk about RISC OS in terms of "With just this bit of extra effort and organisation our platform can recover some".

I'm aware of no magic bullet or suggestion that suddenly makes people want to do serious development for a retro platform like RISC OS, but if you know of one please share it.

So for me the question is; How do we change the perception of the RISC OS platform?

So for me the question is; How do we change the perception of the RISC OS platform?

Make it cool.

Make a demo for it that blows away the best of the Amiga demos.

This probably means running on an A3000 or similar, to compete with OCS and ECS Amigas. Then, you'll have better sound (eight channels instead of four,) some better graphics modes (640x256 8-bit, anyone?) and four times the processor power (although a much more primitive graphics chip.)

Once people see what you can do with an old ARM2 machine, then there might be interest in those, and it can trickle up through to the RiscPC.

I've always thought that a modern day IDE for RISC OS is necessary stepping stone. e.g. Something like Visual Studio. I know a lot of developer hate them, but many more won't program without them.

Agreed, but I think we need a proper debugger before an IDE (after all, you can't write an IDE without bugs ).

Certainly the last time I did debugging on RISC OS, it was easier to just stick (f|s)?printf every so often...

I do think the rapidly widening gulf between the few remaining developers and users is a bit of a problem if the platform is to survive in any shape or form.

We're here, aren't we?

And you use risc os so much

Well, yes, for about 90% of my computing .

I don't play games or watch videos; I use the internet, set music, send and receive emails, retouch photos and do graphics and dtp (desktop publishing). For these purposes apps such as Firefox, Netsurf, Rhapsody, MessengerPro, Photodesk, Variations, Thump, Artworks, Postscript3 and OvationPro are more than adequate: I know these programs well, several are still being developed and they can do everything I need or want to do at adequate speed on this Iyonix. I have used Windows and Mac machines extensively and for many of the purposes mentioned above, but I personally still find RISC OS a more congenial environment. I quite accept that other users may have much greater demands that RISC OS cannot satisfy, and I would not claim to be typical. It wouldn't surprise me though if many traditional RO users also used the platform for most of their computing; nor would it surprise me either if most developers hardly used it at all, and I wouldn't presume to criticise them. I hope to go on using RISC OS and I am encouraged by the work of ROOL and others in improving the OS and porting it to faster hardware.

2) There is very few developer support! I have not found how to use Internet APIs with GCC. Where can I find them?

But its a pity that the OSS community just ports OSS like Firefox. Why should a new user (or an old user) use RISC OS if there is the _same_ software on cheaper hardware like PCs (Windows or Linux)?

If you want port, then please port it with real RISC OS customizaton.

1) The hardware is not interesting! If you want new developers, they don't know why they should develop for under powered hardware? If you are a developer, you want do some cool stuff. But you always need good powered hardware to do "to day" things like video play and editing, 3D graphics etc. Not every user need this, but it should be no problem if the user want it.

If you want develop for retro hardware, then because you want do cool stuff on very old hardware... like C64 or BBC. But Risc PC or Iyonix are today not retro... just under powered computers. :-(

There is no doubt that much faster and exciting ARM products are coming, which will greatly help our 'speed' problem (assuming port's are feasible). But until then...