The current SoulSeek protocol doesn’t support multiple sources downloads. This means you have to wait in a queue till you are first and your download starts. For british people this wouldn’t be much of a problem but for the rest of the world to queue means to loose time.
In real life queues are a mysterious thing: on one hand they can be huge but you only wait five minutes but on the other hand five persons can make you wait an hour. SoulSeek is not different in this manner. You see a queue number but you don’t know how long you have to wait. Maybe you observed yourself already comparing upload-speed with the queue to get some idea how long you will have to wait. That’s all right if you like maths but for the rest of us the situation isn’t satisfying.
That’s why SolarSeek introduces the “dispatch” semantics. It’s a time indication that shows you how long it will take until your file will be dispatched or in other words downloaded. This means you don’t have to interpret an abstract queue number.
dispatch time = (( queuelength / uploadslots ) * ( totalfilesize / totalfiles )) / uploadrate
In addition a result with no queue will be rated to indicate which one has best quality at the highest speed. And all this again without concentrating on number that you would have to interpret.
dispatch rating = ( mp3rate / ( totalmp3rate / totalresults )) / ( uploadrate / ( totaluploadrate / totalresults ))
What do you think about the dispatch semantics?
Update: We probably call the column “Queue Time” instead of “Dispatch”.
Comments for this article:
It seems interesting.
Posted by Dani – Nov 24, 08:56 – Permalink
This sounds like a good idea.
However, I would personally prefer you guys to prioritize the core features and functions to get an initial release out as quickly as possible.
Once that is all good, start working on new improvements and ‘nice to haves’.
Posted by Paul – Nov 26, 04:34 – Permalink
Paul – I would argue that it is really the ‘nice to haves’ that really make the app. It would form a poor impression to release a 1.0 that was a prettied up previous version. There’s an easy way to do things, and a good way to do things – and I think these guys are definitely on the ball.
Posted by Samuel Gwilym – Nov 30, 06:55 – Permalink
Samuel,
Sure but this 1.0 version is probably lying around since 3 years so to me Paul is right. And current version seems to be broken in leopard. Anyway I think this is a really good idea.
I just hope that it will get out of its vaporware statut. I think developers shouldn’t talk too much about something unreleased. Especially for years. I know it’s not easy and nobody get paid… well, good luck
Posted by marlwin – Nov 30, 09:24 – Permalink
Ok my bad, I didn’t now I was in the dev blog.
I just receive the whole site RSS
Posted by marlwin – Nov 30, 09:29 – Permalink