Community Interview: Point—a Vibrant Team

Hello, everybody. In this issue of community interview, we are honored that we’ve invited the development team of Point downloader!

Now, let’s begin this issue of community interview!

Q: First of all, every member of Point team, please give us an introduction about you~

A: Hello, everyone. I’m Match in Point Team. First of all let me make a whole introduction on Point downloader and the development team of it: Point is a piece of software used to help you efficiently download various kinds of files. Its current version supports HTTP, ED2K, BT, FTP and other downloading protocols. Our goal is to provide users of Linux systems with a simple and beautiful downloading software.

Currently members of Point development team include Bonse, Kumahime, Match, 起点 and 神奇大叔. At present Match and 神奇大叔 have boarded the pirate ship (joined Deepin Team) while Bonse, Kumahime and 起点 are still students studying in school.

Q: wow, there are many people in your team. Would you please introduce yourselves?

A: Hello, everyone. I’m Bonse, still a student studying in school. I’m interested in playing basketball, guitar, running and bodybuilding. In programming, the language now I’m good at is C++. The programming tool that I’ve been using is almost Qt Creator. Occasionally I use vim. Well, here is one of my actual images.

A: Hello, everybody. My name’s Kumahime. I’m currently a student in school! My interests and hobbies are comparatively extensive. I like watching anime (I’m a otaku), writing codes (this would not need to be said), playing games (mostly of which are video games and handheld games, but recently we are playing LOL) and listening to music (mainly Japanese music) best...

You ask me why I don’t exercise? I do. Occasionally I’ll practice Muay Thai (just playing to exercise...)

In programming, I'm comparatively good at C ++ and Java. Originally I wanted to specialize in C ++, but for some reasons I spent a lot of time on Java. The most user-friendly programming tool I’ve used so far should be eclipse. And I’ve also used other tools, such as visual studio, netbeans, vim, but personally I find that the tool which is most suitable to me is eclipse. Ah, I also put a small photo of mine without makeup here:

A:Hello, everyone. I’m Match, currently a member of Deepin Team. I have many hobbies. I  especially like seeing movies and writing codes. Doing these two things can make me forget food and sleep. In terms of movies, all the science fiction movies and hardcore ones suit me (⊙o⊙)...

Currently I’m comparatively good at C++ and QML. The programming tool I’ve been using is almost Qt Creator, occasionally vim. Personally I think different people have different views on what’s the best programming language and what’s the best editing tool. Use what you like using. Once I had used vim to write programs for a period of time. Later I found that in fact the functions that I needed can be provided by Qt Creator, so I did not continue to toss about, which is also the reason why I love Deepin. It’s good being simple and enough to be used.

Here is one of my small fresh photos not long after I went to college (I became an “Uncle” two years later and couldn’t be taken photos. Watch this and let me leave a good impression to you. Haha):

A: Hello, everybody. My name’s 起点. I’m also currently a student in school. I have almost the same interests with them, which are generally writing codes, reading, playing sports like basketball, watching movies, listening to music, surfing the Internet. I occasionally play computer games.

I'm comparatively good at C++. For Java, I always want to find an opportunity to knock in Java programs much. However, things go athwart. Most of my time was spent on C++. For web pages, I learned the simple html and PHP. So far the programming tool that I’ve used for the longest time is Qt Creator. I’ve also used VS, eclipse, etc. before. I think every programming tool has its own advantages.

Here is attached one of my small photos:

A: Hello, everyone. I’m 神奇大叔, Choldrim. Why am I called 神奇大叔? Because I already have the age of an uncle~ @.@ ~

At present, I’ve also joined in Deepin Team. At ordinary times I like playing basketball, playing the guitar, roller blade, etc. I also played breaking for a period of time before, but later because I was comparatively busy, I played it little. However, now when I hear the breaking music, I will still be particularly excited~

I'm usually good at C++ and Java. In normal times I use Qt Creator and Eclipse. OK, I send you a photo! (This is the legendary "The Chinese First Beach", with the character "滩" to testify! lol).

 

Q: Wow. What a long personal introduction～ My first question is: Why did you want to develop this software?

A (Bonse): In fact, the original intention of developing this software is very simple, that is, we can not stand the downloading function being built in the browser since when we download files, it is suddenly cut off, and then we have no choice but to re-download.

Of course, we have used a lot of downloading software. And the efforts made by some software in downloading can not be underestimated, but nearly all the downloading software under Linux has a flaw - the downloading operations are too complex, which is embodied collectively in that the level of the menu is not clear and sometimes it will take us a very long time to find the “Newly Download” button. If you, as a programmer, find these operations are somewhat complex, not to mention that normal users will find they are very complex.

When you open the “About” interface of Point, you can see the three prominent phrases: "Simple, Easy to use, Efficient". The relevant information about the authors is placed below them, because users’ experience is the point (which is also one of the reasons why the team is called Point).

Match and 起点 took part in the initial development of Point. Now it is mainly continued to be developed by Match and 神奇大叔. Of course, in this process, there were and are a lot of friends helping us test, giving us feedback and suggestions, providing advice and help. They are also contributors of this software.

At present we continue to develop this software mainly in our spare time, so the updating speed will be slower than before. We hope you can understand this. Our goal is to break the dilemma that the interface of downloading software is unfriendly in Linux systems and to truly realize that we can download files at a high speed with only one click, to highlight the features of being "Simple, Easy to use, Efficient" and that the software has a beautiful appearance!

Q: Why did you choose Point as the name of the software. Is there any implied meaning in it?

A (起点): The original name of this software was a word which represents an animal and begins with P, but later we found that the name was actually used by a player which focuses on blue movies, so the name must be changed. However, we still show special preference to the letter P.

We were constantly thinking. Suddenly the inspiration occurred to us and we were hot-headed. Point! ! (⊙o⊙)

To say it more seriously, the name Point represents two implied meanings in our software: Firstly, it represents the spirit of cohesion of our team.

Secondly, it represent our passion for knowledge and technology and the snail spirit of being not afraid of hardship and fatigue and being willing to accumulate bit by bit.

Q: It seems that the naming of Point was a bit tortuous... Currently what plans do you have to develop Point?

A (Match): About the design of the software interface of Point... I must mention our school's home page. I don’t ridicule it. You can go to see your school's home page, which is not very different from ours. It’s a mess. It would take you a morning to find a curriculum (Ahem, why we played truant is all because we cannot find the curriculum, OK?). Then, by chance, I saw the home page of a foreign university. At that moment my feeling is just one word: wow! Suddenly, the concept of “Small is beautiful” deeply remained in my mind, and later it became a concept I observe when I design the UI of software, which of course includes Point.

You’ll find that on the main interface of Point there are few menu items totally, there are only three or four buttons, and there are just several menu choices in each list item because our idea is that we should put the functions most users often use in the most conspicuous place. As long as a user finds the resources he wants to download, all he needs to do is click it once, and then quietly wait for the completion of the downloading. Our philosophy is: The software that can make a thing the most easily done is good software.

As for the UI style, it is also very simple, because we believe that the UI which looks nice will make users feel better!

As for the downloading protocols supported, currently Point supports most protocols, but there may be a small part of relatively cold protocols which are not supported currently. We will not do excessive expansion to the downloading protocols for the time being.

As for Thunder, now its basic functions have been supported. Our goal at the early stage is to do further expansion to the function of choosing the downloading directory freely besides to realize more stable support for Thunder. In fact, now you can freely select the file storage path of Thunder, though it’s not stable enough. Our long-term goal is to make it as easy to use as the Thunder under Windows system, or more convenient and easier to use than the Thunder under Windows system.

Q: So can not tell us the specific functions Point has accomplished currently?

A (Kumahime): The main functions which have been accomplished currently are as follows:

• Supporting multi-threaded downloading
• Supporting continuing to download or upload after being stopped
• Automatically detecting recovery of network and continuing downloading
• Providing plugins of Chrome browser and Firefox browser, with clicking once to download files
• Supporting a pop-up box, which is more compact and more humane
• Supporting you-get, with clicking once to detect and download online videos
• Supporting xware (Thunder), using Thunder’s powerful downloading feature of remote downloading, supporting a variety of protocols commonly used, being more powerful

 

Q: In development, have you ever experienced any problems or interesting things?

A (神奇大叔): erm, what is comparatively funny is that at the beginning of implementing the support for HTTP downloading functions, the problem of thread synchronization always caused that the data couldn’t be written in correctly which resulted in crash of programs. The emergence of this kind of crashes is between the reproducible bugs and non-reproducible bugs because it does occur but occurs at an uncertain time. Figuratively speaking, the boss says that he would give you a period of time off and you know that the holiday is certainly to be over, but as for when it will come to an end, the boss has the final say. And thus you’ll feel very agonized over it.

And it’s not practical to debug this kind of bugs with the way of stopping downloading or uploading at intervals because the process of writing data into the hard disk needs to do a lot of repeated operations of writing in data. We would become mad if it was stopped each time after we wrote in data. Therefore we could only debug the bugs by the method of printing information. For this seemingly reasonable debugging, if you do it much, you’ll naturally break down. And later we directly opened a program and let it run on its own. Match held a pillow and walked around the table in the laboratory. This scene lasted for about two weeks (You eyes did not deceive you. It is true that Match held a pillow since in the beginning six months we slept in the laboratory in order to speed up development.). Because it is terrible to look at it and this tangled mood is already indelible, we are scared in retrospect. This funny scene of holding a pillow isn’t taken in an amusing photo, otherwise it would certainly make you raptured.

Q: Haha, I want to see the amusing photos! By the way, why did you choose to first release this software in Deepin community at that time?

A: At first we used Ubuntu, but in using Ubuntu, a bunch of configurations are always needed to meet the need of our work. We felt very uncomfortable after using Ubuntu for a long time. And then we began to look for distributions which are easier to use. Later we found Deepin when one word can be used to express our then feeling—ecstasy. And gradually we became Deepin fans. At the very beginning we used Deepin 12.06 version.

The reason why we chose to first release this software in Deepin community is very simple. Because we are Deepin fans, we think our idea of developing Point is the same with the concept of Deepin, and we support Deepin, so we released this software in Deepin community.

Q: What do you think of the development through community cooperation? And please give a comment on the current Deepin community.

A: The development through community cooperation is a very good thing, because it’s impossible that everything is done well by the company. Of course, now that it is cooperation, the communication is indispensable. It is only the start that Deepin specially opened up a forum for community development. I hope later we can have more communication with the community developers to provide community developers with assistance in some aspects within our power, such as in designing and translation. I hope the community gets better and better.

Q: What else do you want to say to the users?

In fact, what we want to say to the users is still the same with our reply in the forum: Your support is our greatest motivation!