Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Developing software for Ubuntu

By day, I am a software developer. OK, software developer is a bit grand, but I work in the development department for a fund manager, developing reports, applications, SQL etc., all on Windows.

After running Ubuntu for some time now on my home machines (desktop, laptop & file server), I have been keen to try developing for Ubuntu/Linux. Python is a popular language for developing Linux applications so I decided to try and learn python by creating some applications.

The trouble is trying to think of something worthwhile to develop. My first attempt, a media cataloguing application, started off quite well and taught me quite a lot about developing in Python & GTK. However it became obvious that there was already a very good solution out there, so not wishing to reinvent the wheel, I stopped working on that.

My next idea for an application came about while looking for some software for my young children. At school, they use the Phonics system of learning to read and write. I was looking for some phonics software that ran on Linux but couldn't find any - so I thought I would create my own.

So that is what I have been doing for the last month or two. The application is nearly finished, the only thing remaining is to record the sound samples it will use. I have setup a website dedicated to this (free, open source project) at http://phonix.org.uk.