Can't download radio progs ......

[Jeremy Nicoll - ml get_iplayer]

CJB <chrisjbrady at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jut the jargon of Git, Pearl, CGI, whatever is way over my head.

As a professional programmer (me too, some time ago) you must have been used
to a constantly changing technical landscape... and I'm truly surprised that
you can't find basic introductions to them all via Google.
 

Git is a methodology which allows multiple (authorised) people to make
changes to a commonly held (on the Git servers) bunch of files making up
what's typically called a 'project'.  The programmers for some open-source
projects are spread all over the world, hardly or never actually meet, and
all of their work is coordinated through such a system. 

In GiP's case the files held on Git are the programmes we run, plus the
definitions of the G_iP website's pages, and also the programmes used to
build the releases of the app and its installer(s).  Every file that's in a
release of Get_iPlayer is held in Git, along with its change history, and
it's possible to download either the patches or (I think) the actual state
of any of the individual files concerned at any point in its change history,
as well as 'bundles' of the whole lot each time DP decided that a set of
them should be released.

perl (not Pearl!) is the programming language that G_ip is written in. 
There's loads of resources online for perl...  


CGI is a fairly long-in-the-tooth way of writing code that users of web
pages will execute on the server (I think); it's the mechanism first seen
long ago for producing 'visitor counts' on web site pages, and supporting
'visitor books' etc.  In G_iP's case, if CGI is in use I would guess it's
the connecting logic between the browser interface that the PVR uses (which
as it runs in a browser must be displaying web pages), and the server that
runs on your own computer and supplies the webpages that the browser
displays.  Actions taken on those pages will cause requests to be sent back
to the server (on your computer) and that server presumably then issues
commands to run G_iP itself.  Though... I've never used the PVR and it's
ages since I looked at the code, but that's approximately what I thought it
did. 

-- 
Jeremy Nicoll - my opinions are my own.