Roku Developer Program

[bretthacker]

Is there an option for paid developer support? My attempts to get a resolution to my issue through the partner knowledge center are fruitless - they aren't responsive, don't address the question asked, ignore follow-ups, and can't explain why their guidance is in opposition to documentation. I'd like to speak to someone as an escalation and would pay to do so as I've invested dozens of hours in this solution and am unwilling to throw it away without a fight.

Please advise. New Roku developer, 30+ year developer on other platforms.

[TwitchBronBron]

I don't know of any paid developer support. However, feel free to reach out on the RokuCommunity slack group in the #general channel. There are lots of people on there that are happy to help answer questions.

https://join.slack.com/t/rokudevelopers/shared_invite/zt-4vw7rg6v-NH46oY7hTktpRIBM_zGvwA

[philanderson777]

Could not agree more; the roku developers slack is just the best and most informative way to get friendly, timely and good discussions on problems of different sorts .... 

[joetesta]

"I've invested dozens of hours in this solution"

if I had a dime for every time I invested dozens of hours in brightscript development and got nothing to show for it, I'd now have several dimes.

I've seen more than one experienced dev run, shrieking and pulling hair out while swearing never to touch brightscript again.  Rumor is one of the guys is still in the mental hospital that learning brightscript put him in. Roku development isn't for everyone, especially developers who've spent 30 years working with real programming languages. 

kidding mostly but yeah, welcome to the wonderful world of roku dev.  Seconding those above, Roku dev slack is your best friend 🙂

[bretthacker]

This is embarrassing for Roku. This has been going back and forth for over a week. They don't read, they don't dialog, they just mindlessly respond. This is the latest of literally over a dozen back and forths. They are clearly arrogant and don't care about solving actual problems. They are oblivious to the idea that they might, in fact, not understand something about their own product.

[philanderson777]

@bretthacker did you try joining the Roku Developers Slack and posting there?

[joetesta]

Your best bet by far is the dev Slack where you'll likely find people who've already done exactly what you're trying to accomplish, and are willing to help you, for free.  

If you're not able to find the dev Slack then post your code here and hope that some kindly wandering knowledgeable soul happens across it in the next week or two.  That's how we did Roku dev back in the day.

[bretthacker]

My concern here is, this is a problem with verification. Code is being rejected by Roku and the code conforms to documentation. They've changed the static tests and broken them. Are Roku engineers on Slack and will they fix this? My code is sound.

[philanderson777]

No it's not a substitute for partner support .... but ... having said that it's good to 

- get clarity on your issue quickly - often there are other things we have not thought of which others can point out

- others can help with possible examples etc ... and either help to confirm / deny your issue 

- Roku employees are members of the slack community, yes, and do try to help where possible.

- lastly it's really hard to diagnose issues over email ... slack really beats that!

so I'm not saying the slack will fix your issue ... but just saying there is an amazing community there willing to help with amazing and timely contributions to polite posts.

[joetesta]

> Code is being rejected by Roku and the code conforms to documentation. They've changed the static tests and broken them.

Unfortunately the governing factor is certification, not documentation.

For the dozen plus years I've been around roku, it has always been this way; seriously thought the company wouldn't survive because of exactly this sort of thing.  Since then they went public and became the most used streaming hardware platform in the US. You telling them they're doing it wrong won't get them to change.