Developers Workshop 2005

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The workshop logo was created by WiZard

This page is dedicated to the OS/2 and eComStation Developers Workshop 2005! The Developers_Workshop_2006 will take place the weekend of 8. and 9. April 2006 in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
The OS/2 and eComStation Developers Workshop 2005 was held on the weekend of 09. and 10. July 2005 in Dresden, Germany.
If you are a webmaster and want to help us tell the OS/2 and eComStation community about this workshop, feel free to use the workshop logo on right hand side. For example, you can place it on your web page and link to the workshop homepage. If you require a larger version of the image, simply send an email to the organizers. An email address can be found in the Contact section. A banner version of the logo is also [available], and a small version is [here]!

News Items

04 Jan 2006     There will be a Developers Workshop 2006, you can find more information here
08 Aug 2005     A PDF on the Mozilla presentation is now available (see Download Presentations)
18 Jul 2005     changed the website to reflect that the event took place
14 Jul 2005     added a feedback section (from the feedback form that was filled out by the attendees)
14 Jul 2005     added three photos to the gallery plus a link to more photos
12 Jul 2005     added the first presentations and posters for download
28 Jun 2005     description for the session of Jan van Wijk added
24 Jun 2005     first information about posters available
23 Jun 2005     added Saturday evening information (right under the schedule!)
21 Jun 2005     the Firewire session has a more detailed description now
20 Jun 2005     added a presentation from Stefan Neis about wxWidgets
08 Jun 2005     Description of some presentations are now online
04 Jun 2005     And one more presentation, about GUIs and FORTRAN
01 Jun 2005     Added a presentation by Adrian Gschwend about netlabs.org
26 May 2005     Added workshop location description and how to get there
12 May 2005     Added another presentation on USB WebCams
11 Apr 2005     Developers Workshop Merchandising available through the [netlabs.org shop]!
06 Apr 2005     Online shop opened - you can purchase tickets now!
01 Apr 2005     And another presentation
31 Mar 2005     Two presentations added
22 Mar 2005     Workshop logo as banner added
16 Mar 2005     More information in the registration section
09 Mar 2005     Information about announcement mailing list added
06 Mar 2005     Added another presentation
02 Mar 2005     Workshop logo added
01 Mar 2005     Added the first three presentations
28 Feb 2005     Added some hotels to the accomodation section
26 Feb 2005     First travel information available
25 Feb 2005     Added some information about registration, program and location
22 Feb 2005     Initial website online, the old one used to prepare the workshop is here


Registration

People that want to attend the workshop have to register online. We use the Mensys online shop for registration. This shop is secure and offers a number of different ways to pay the registration fee. (including transferring money to a (German) bank account if you do not have a credit card!) The shop was used for the registration for the last Warpstock Europe and has worked very well.
While it will be possible to register at the checkin desk, we strongly suggest not doing this. Why? Because we have to know how many people are attending the workshop! (at least, roughly!) We have the possibility to rent more or larger rooms depending on the number of participants, but this only works in advance!
We know that some people make a last minute decision to participate and that is OK with us. However, if you already know that you want to attend, please use the online shop to register!

The final prices for the event are:
40 EUR for a two day registration
25 EUR for a one day registration
The prices include a limited number of drinks and snacks. Lunch and other meals have to be paid separately. The registration fee is also used to pay the travel costs for at least one developer from the Ukraine. In addition, we offer Workshop Sponsor units that will also be used for that purpose.

If it turns out that things are cheaper or that, for whatever reason, we cannot arrange for the visit of the developer from the Ukraine, we will have some money left over! All money that is left over, will be used to pay for lunch at the event! It is simply too difficult to transfer money back to every participant, but we can pay for parts of the lunch. That makes lunch cheaper for every participant!! After all, people have to eat. :-) We do think, that this is fair. We do not intend to make any money with this event!

If you have some comments about the registration process or the registration fee, please send us an email! An email address can be found in the Contact section.


Workshop Program

The following presentations were sheduled:

Sebastian Wittmeier Porting X Applications to PM with Everblue
The Everblue project aims at running ported Unix GUI applications on OS/2 PM,

similar to what Odin does for Windows applications. To be exact, it is a wrapper Xlib -> PM.
In this presentation I tell you, how to compile Everblue, how to use Everblue for your
own ports, and how to bugfix or add functionality. I will conclude with an overview, how
much is implemented, and what is still missing.

Alexandr Cherkaev Creating an OS/2 IEEE 1394 - Firewire driver

In this presentation I present Firewire for os/2-eCS project. The following topics will be covered:
1: quick introduction to firewire. History, bus architecture overview, advantages.
2: Firewire stack for os/2: functions, calling conventions, how it works together.
3: Build environment.
4: Writing driver for firewire stack.

Jan van Wijk Developing cross-platform text-based applications in C using the OpenWatcom compiler on OS/2

How to use the OpenWatcom C compiler to create multi-platform text-mode
applications to be run on DOS, OS2, Windows-NT/XP and Linux, building
everything on OS/2 or eComStation. As an example and usefull resource as
well, a fully working user interface library will be presented and made
available. (User interface very similar to the DFSee program).

Peter Weilbacher Mozilla Compilation and Development Procedures

In this presentation I will try to give an overview of the current
status and issues of Mozilla development on OS/2. I will demonstrate how
to set up the build system and start a build, how to use Mozilla's
Bugzilla. After an overview of the source directory structure, I will
demontrate how to go about fixing bugs in different layers of the code,
both for the Mozilla Suite and the Firefox browser. I will conclude with
a summary of the future Mozilla development and what needs to be done to
make it happen on OS/2.

Bart van Leeuwen Development roadmap for eComStation
Jacques van Leeuwen, Jan van der Heide       Translating eComStation
This session will be about two things:

1st. Problems where translators might run into and how to solve them when
starting with translating eComStation or any other program or document. It
is a kind of lessons learnt from our eCS translation into Dutch.
2nd. Things that developers should know about the original translating
process on which the translation of hard- and software items was organized
within IBM. IBM has, as a professional organization, it's rules and
guidelines. We can learn from them on how to organize the translation process
in a volunteer organization.

Our objective is:
"Without a good translation no product has a chance to succeed in non
English speaking countries"

Jan van der Heide is still working for IBM NL as a DBA and in Reporting
Jacques van Leeuwen is former employee of the Dutch Translation department
of IBM NL.

Exigen Corporation Latvia OS/2 USB Stack Development Guidelines
This session will cover the OS/2 USB stack architecture. After a short introduction and some
facts on the history, the development environment will be discussed and a driver template will be presented.
Detailed information about the interfaces of the USB stack will be given. At the end, new features of the
usbmsd driver and known bugs will be discussed.
Vladyslav Stelmakhovskyy Supporting USB WebCams in OS/2
The WebCam presentation will contain the following information:

1. WebCams introdution. USB stack changes.
2. Present: what we have now. Supported cameras. WebCam API. Current status. WebCam applications.
3. Future: API enhancements. Future applications. Planned supporting cameras. Problems with new WebCams.

Adrian Gschwend netlabs.org - What's up?
netlabs.org provides software for the OS/2 and eCS platform since 1997,

meanwhile a lot changed in the IT and OSS industry. So it is time to summarize
the current state of OS/2 and eCS and do an outlook about what could be done and
what can't be done in the future.

Robin Haberkorn FORTRAN/TK: Easy GUI development for OS/2 and Windows
FORTRAN/TK is a kind of wrapper to the Tk-Toolkit for the Open Watcom FORTRAN 77 compiler.

It's based on the Rexx/Tk library.
In my speech, I want to give a short overview about how to use FORTRAN/TK and the
actual API, as well as about potential appliances. I will demonstrate everything with
practical examples. Furthermore, I will talk about the current status of the project,
remaining problems and its future.

Stefan Neis wxWidgets - a cross platform toolkit and its OS/2 versions
In this session I plan to talk about three different questions:

- What is wxWidgets?
Here, I'll give a short overview over the most important features
and concepts of wxWidgets, possibly also a look on a short
"hello, world"-like sample program to give everyone a feeling on
how to use it from the application developer point of view.
- How can I use it on OS/2?
That part is dedicated to the different ports that are more or less
usable on OS/2 and how to compile them. Also, I'll warn about some
typical problems in the build process and how to solve them.
- How well do the different ports work, what remains to be done?
After discussing the application developer point of view and an
area that's relevant to both library developers and library users,
this is going to focus on the library developer point of view and
the current deficiencies of the native port.


Schedule

It should be noted that we did not have sessions in parallel!
Registration started at 8:30 on Saturday and the Opening session begun at 9:00. This was the schedule for Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday Morning     8:30 Registration
9:00 Opening
OS/2 USB Stack Development Guidelines
Supporting USB WebCams in OS/2
wxWidgets - a cross platform toolkit and its OS/2 versions
Saturday Afternoon     netlabs.org - What's up?
Discussion about netlabs.org and OS/2 Software Development
Developing cross-platform text-based applications in C using the OpenWatcom compiler on OS/2
FORTRAN/TK: Easy GUI development for OS/2 and Windows
Saturday Evening     Get-together in a restaurant in the center of Dresden
Sunday Morning Porting X Applications to PM with Everblue
Development roadmap for eComStation
Translating eComStation
Sunday Afternoon Creating an OS/2 IEEE 1394 - Firewire driver
Mozilla Compilation and Development Procedures


Saturday Evening
Participants of the Developers Workshop had the chance to get together on Saturday evening for an informal chat. We had reserved a couple of tables in a restaurant in the center of Dresden.

Download Presentations



Posters

Developers had the opportunity to submit posters for the Developers Workshop! Those posters were printed (at no cost for the developers!!) in Dresden and were visible to all attendees of the Workshop. In addition, the posters can now be downloaded from this website!
We had the following posters:

Cornelis Bockemuehl      Devlopment Tools Section at EDM/2      Download English
Wolfgang Draxler WDSibyl Download English German


Posters are a great way to inform people about your work or your project! If you are developing an application or driver for OS/2 or eComStation or if you are maintaining a website that is related to a development project, please consider creating a poster for the Workshop. A poster is simply a very large paper, for example in the A2 to A3 format, that contains an overview about a project. While it may not be the ideal tool, OpenOffice could be used to create posters! However, we do recommend [1] Maul Publisher to create a poster. A poster should include the following information:
- a short history of the project and a description
- the current state
- some links to web pages or contact information of the author
- some ideas about how other developers could participate
- anything else that you think is important or interesting

You may also update the posters for later OS/2 events like Warpstock or Warpstock Europe!
If you cannot attend the Workshop, but would like to present your project to the community we can make this happen! Here is the deal:
Send us an eMail and let us know that you think about preparing a poster. Then send us your poster no later then July 4th. Please use PDF, PS, TIFF or any other ready-to-print format! (no SXW, no PAP, no LWP!!) The Workshop team will print the posters in Dresden and present them at the Workshop. There is no cost for you, except the time that you need to create the poster!
Of course, we will also make the posters available via the Workshop homepage. This guarantees that a wider audience can have a look at the them!


Workshop Location

The workshop was held in the beautiful city of Dresden, Germany. Here are a few pictures of Dresden:

The historic center of Dresden.
The Semper Opera.
The AMD plant in Dresden. All Athlons and Opterons are produced here.
Dresden is located in the east of Germany.

The workshop itself was held in the Willers-Bau, a building of the Dresden University of Technology. The university campus is located close to the center, just 5 minutes by bus or tram.

The address of the Workshop location is:
TU-Dresden
Willers-Bau A-221
Zellescher Weg 12
01069 Dresden

For a larger version click here
For a larger version click here

As you can see on the images, if you are coming by car you should be able to park right next to the Willers-Bau. The parking lot is protected by a gate that should be open on Saturday and Sunday. (If not, let the person on the intercom know that you take part in a workshop in the Willers-Bau and want to park your car.)
Next to the Willers-Bau is the SLUB, the "Saechsiche Landes und Universitaetsbibliothek", the university library. If you see signs to SLUB, you can follow them as well. (but do not use the SLUB parking lot, as you have to pay there!!)
In addition, any decent route planer should be able to locate the address above.

If you want to use public transportation from your hotel to the workshop location, you can use the new DORIS information system.
First, add the "Starthaltestelle". This is the station close to your hotel. The easiest way to do this is use the "Karte Start" button on the right side of the entry field. Locate your hotel, and the closest bus or tram station.
Second, enter "Fritz Foerster Platz" as the "Zielhaltestelle".
Now click the "Verbindung suchen" button and you will be presented with a list of possible connections from your hotel to the workshop location. You should be able to see the Willers-Bau from the "Fritz Foerster Platz". (if not, walk along the "Zellscher Weg" eastwards.


Getting to Dresden

If you plan a trip to Dresden and need any advice or help, do not hesitate to contact the organizers. An email address can be found in the Contact section.
By Train
Dresden can be reached by train very easy. The following table shows the travel time by train from some european cities to Dresden:

Berlin 2 hours
Bern 8 hours 40 minutes
Brussels roughly 8 hours
Budapest 9 to 10 hours
Frankfurt a.M.      4 hours 30 minutes
Hamburg 4 hours 20 minutes
Leipzig 1 hour 20 minutes
Munich roughly 7 hours
Prague 2 hours 20 minutes
Vienna 7 to 8 hours
Warsaw 8 to 10 hours

For more information please visit http://www.bahn.de.

By Car
Dresden can be reached by car! :-)

By Plane
Dresden has an airport with a large number of national and some international connections. If there is no direct flight from your city, a connection via Frankfurt a.M., Munich, Leipzig or Berlin is usually available.
Flying to Leipzig or Berlin Schoenefeld is particularily attractive, as there are direct train connections from those airports to Dresden.
Cheap flight to Dresden are currently available from:

Airline From URL
DBA Munich http://www.flydba.com
Germanwings Stuttgart http://www.germanwings.com/
Germanwings     Cologne-Bonn      http://www.germanwings.com/

Accomodation

You can use the following websites to find hotels in Dresden. They are in no particular order and we do list them for your information only! (You are looking for hotels in the south of Dresden.)
http://www.hrs.de
http://hotel.de/
http://opodo.de/
http://www.expedia.de

The following hotels are close to the workshop location.
4-star Hotel
Mercure Newa Dresden - http://www.mercure.com/mercure/fichehotel/gb/mer/1577/fiche_hotel.shtml
The Mercure Newa Dresden is also located in the city center, and the conference location can be reached by tram in about 4 minutes. (just 3 stops)

2-to-3-star Hotels
Ibis Dresden Königstein - link
Ibis Dresden Lilienstein - link
Ibis Dresden Bastei - link
Ibis operates three hotels in Dresden. All are located next to each other and very close to the Mercure Newa Dresden and the city center. The conference location can be reached in about 4 minutes. (same route as from the Mercure Newa Dresden)

Youth Hostel Style:
City-Herberge Dresden - http://city-herberge.de/
The City-Herberge is right in the center of Dresden. The conference location can be reached by tram in about 5 minutes.(5 stops)

Camping Site:
There is a nice camping site in Dresden-Mockritz, just 8 to 10 minutes by bus or car from the workshop location.
Campingplatz Dresden-Mockritz - http://www.camping-dresden.de/


Gallery

The [netlabs.org shop] has a couple of items for sale that are related to the Developers Workshop 2005:
Mug Shirt Mouse Pad Bear
This is only a small selection. For a complete list of items see the [netlabs.org shop].
Here are three images from the Developers Workshop 2005:
People in the audience Adrian giving his presentation Lunch
More Images can be downloaded here.


Contact

If you have comments or want further information about the workshop, you can always reach us by sending an eMail to:
DevelopersWorkshop [at] netlabs.org
Robert Henschel was mainly responsible for organizing the workshop.


Feedback

At the end of the Developers Workshop, feedback forms were handed out to the attendees. Here are the questions and the answers that were given. See yourself if the developers liked the workshop!
Altogether we had 36 attendees and 30 feedback forms were handed in.

The price for the workshop was        too high     OK     don't know
0 28 2
The location for the workshop was        too informal     OK     don't know
0 28 1
The presentations at the workshop were        too many     too short     too long     not special enough     not what I wanted     OK
0 2 2 3 1 26
Catering during the workshop was        OK     not OK
29 1
Did you get enough information about the workshop? (via eMail, web...)        YES     NO
28 0
Would you like to see the Developers Workshop repeated next year?       YES     NO     I would try to attend
25 0 9
Would it be ok if the next Workshop would be held in Switzerland?       YES     NO     I would try to attend
19 2 12
Should the next Workshop be during the week or on a weekend?        weekdays     weekend
1 29
Would you like more discussion next year?        YES     NO
17 11

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