Announcing the development of LIBSTOCK - Your place for code

[anikolic]

Announcing the development of LIBSTOCK - Your place for code and libraries

Today, we have some great news for the whole community!
We have begun working on a specialized website - Library Stock, or simply Libstock - your place for code and libraries.



With rising requests for more and more custom libraries and projects, we have come up
with a solution that will hopefully satisfy all. We are introducing a perfect place for
developers and electronics geeks. A place that binds your projects, libraries,
your tutorials and project explanations, schematics and manuals,
but also brings a social moment to the whole thing. Through personalized accounts,
you'll be able to connect with people like yourself and utilize the enormous potential of human communication.

You'll be able to freely download source code for libraries and projects and have access
to valuable knowledge. It's a treasure chest of mikroElektronika community,
but with one major difference - it's totally open and free!

So, the countdown begins. We invite all of you who have already shared your projects on our Projects Page,
and all of you who were planning on doing so, to get ready in the following period.
Get your projects neat, add introductory comments, fix ugly code indentation,
and make sure to recompile the projects in latest versions of your favorite compilers.

We expect to have the beta version of the website ready in about six weeks,
if everything goes according to plan. We might get stuck somewhere,
and we cannot promise the exact release date, but we would like you to have some idea of the timing.

Please leave your comments on this, because we would very much appreciate your opinion
regarding this new website, so if you have something to tell us, don't hesitate to do so.
The first version of the website is for sharing the code FOR FREE.
Depending on your interest, we are willing to expand the functionality to SELLING the libraries and project over Libstock.
But we need your feedback in order to know what is it that you really need.

Yours sincerely,
mikroElektronika

[Dany]

Nice!

[SesechXP]

Great idea!

I've some questions:
- what license?
- only projects or libraries compiled whith Mikroelektronika compilers?

[drdoug]

I've been looking for a reason to pimp up some code for a uart interrupt example and this just might be it!

[Dany]

Please leave your comments on this, because we would very much appreciate your opinion
regarding this new website, so if you have something to tell us, don't hesitate to do so.
The first version of the website is for sharing the code FOR FREE.
Depending on your interest, we are willing to expand the functionality to SELLING the libraries and project over Libstock.
But we need your feedback in order to know what is it that you really need.

I have a few thoughts:

- it would be very nice if the website could hold several "versions" of a library, one could always go back to an older version for some reason, or checkout the differences between two versions.

- it would also very nice if the author of a library could submit a new version without intervention of mE people. I my case that is the reason my libraries/projects in "user projects" are not always the last version: I hate to bother mE people every time.

- I think that the idea about selling the libraries is good. I personally would like to have a free part and a paying part in the website.

Good initiative!

[dlwford]

Library ? .... What'sa library?

Works for me !!

[anikolic]

Great idea!

I've some questions:
- what license?
- only projects or libraries compiled whith Mikroelektronika compilers?

No. Not only with our compilers. We are going to have a better support for our compilers, because it will be much easier to deliver your projects as a package made with our Package manager. But, we will enable people to post whatever they want: projects built with other compilers will be allowed, of course.

[anikolic]

I've been looking for a reason to pimp up some code for a uart interrupt example and this just might be it!

Great! We are also planing to enable some sort of Author's blog.
There will be a specialized "Project details" section, so you can also explain how the project works.
Provide images, additional links, files and text. So, you can enrich your project and draw more attention to your work.
If you are a skilled writer, people will prefer downloading your projects,
because you can make things more clear to understand using this website feature.

[anikolic]

- it would be very nice if the website could hold several "versions" of a library, one could always go back to an older version for some reason, or checkout the differences between two versions.

Exactly what we had in mind We have already predicted that maintaining code versions is a crucial part for backward compatibility,
especially for people who rely on your code in their work. If you release a new version which requires code adjustment,
some of the users will prefer to stick to previous one, as long as they do not need to change their code.
Thank you for confirming that we are on the right path. But version control will not be the main focus of the website,
so do not expect some elaborate mechanisms, like SVN or BitBucket, or SourceForge.
You will be able to upload only the entire packages for now.
So, if you make a tiny adjustment to only one file, you will have to upload a new version of the entire project,
rather than just a single file. It wouldn't be wise spending so much time building fancy version maintaining systems just yet,
until we see how the website is received with the community.

- it would also very nice if the author of a library could submit a new version without intervention of mE people. I my case that is the reason my libraries/projects in "user projects" are not always the last version: I hate to bother mE people every time.

Of course. That's the main thing. You'll have your own account and you'll be able to add new projects
with all the relevant files (packages), project description and project details in form of the author's blog.
Having to confirm each and every single upload would take an army of people, so we definitely do not want that.

- I think that the idea about selling the libraries is good. I personally would like to have a free part and a paying part in the website.

Yes, we thought so. However, having the infrastructure for money transactions is to be carefully implemented.
We want secure and reliable system and all necessary legal issues covered.
We are considering to implement some sort of credits as a virtual money, for security reasons.
Do you consider this approach good?

Good initiative!

Thank you Dany. Your opinion means a lot, because your contributions to our projects page are numerous.
This is why websites like Libstock are going to be a great place for people like yourself.

[FRM]

- I think that the idea about selling the libraries is good. I personally would like to have a free part and a paying part in the website.

Good initiative!

I concurr it's a great idea! The potential for library developers to make a little money from their hard work is only fair.

[RexSon]

Good idea

This project needs to be autonomous (well almost) as someone else has already mentioned the project should not tie up too much ME staff time.

One section I need to plead for is documentation Wiki.
I have the greatest respect for the authors of the English documentation (for whom English is not their native language) but some explanations are ambiguous or hard to understand. Some explanations seem to assume prior knowledge, the details of which are not readily available. Sometimes it takes quite a long time with the debugger and simulator to work out how a particular item works. Of course it seems simple once you have discovered how it works!

A Wiki would allow us all to make contributions once we have resolved an item of personal interest.

An example
In the recent past I asked for explicit hardware explanation of the LV 24-33 programmer because IMHO the documentation available did not convince me that I knew precisely how to connect the programmer to the relevant chip. This information was declined. As some of the chips I am working with cost 5PS or 6PS each I was reluctant to use the programmer. Total chip failure is one thing but degradation leading to problems in the future is another, very expensive, issue. Both can be caused by improper programmer functionality.

I was therefore forced to trace out the circuit of the programmer.
I now know how the hardware functions; I have the front-end schematic.
I also have a number of "gotchas" implicit in the design.
A Wiki would be the proper home for this information so that everyone could share in the information.

[RexSon]

A further thought. A section for listing external resources.

I found http://www.rosseeld.be/DRO/PIC/ page and enjoyed reading some of the tips etc.

If an existing web site is available then the author may be reluctant to transfer all his/her information to Libstock

You should have some place where such web pages can be listed. I guess you would need some form of moderation for the list but it would be very useful.

[johnt]

Good idea.

If you're designing this from scratch can I suggest you build in a means to identify duplicate or very similar items and how well tested (maybe a score 1-5 or stars or number of registered users that have used it or something) and how functional and correct any code is.
From experience of running something similar in the BBS days I'd say
you may get an accretion of faulty or duplicate code and ideas that make
the system great to start with but less and less reliable as a resource over time.
If you can design that out from the begining everyone wins.

Looking forward to it.
john

[johnt]

Sorry I missed anikolic's previous post - yes stick with uploading a full
project but remove previous versions elsewhere or totally.Dont leave them in the same search path - create a link to an archive or something. Glad to see you spotted the issue.

I think you should actively NOT allow projects in other compilers however.
That will only confuse issues and fill the forums with "why doesnt it compile and "why do I get syntax errors" messages. Keep it as standard as possible.

john

[p.erasmus]

I think you should actively NOT allow projects in other compilers however.
That will only confuse issues and fill the forums with "why doesnt it compile and "why do I get syntax errors" messages. Keep it as standard as possible.

I agree with this 100%
This is a mikro Compiler page which support the mikro compilers as much as possible and I dont think including other compiler code is a good idea ,
We already see in the forums many posts of people trying to use C18 or CSS code in mikroC compiler and then the questions start why it will not compile
and the first thing the people say Bug in mikroC