Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:06:14 -0800 From: andi payn <andi_payn@speedymail.org> To: ".VWV." <victorvittorivonwiktow@interfree.it> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: stop the desktops' upgrades Message-ID: <1067479573.36829.1713.camel@verdammt.falcotronic.net> In-Reply-To: <003401c39e81$4d892830$fdaeabd4@workstation> References: <003401c39e81$4d892830$fdaeabd4@workstation>
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On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 17:01, .VWV. wrote: > Hello to all. OK, this is probably a troll (and I notice that it was composed on Outlook Express--I'm guessing not running under WINE), but I'm going to answer it anyway.... > I'm happy for the new release. > > Otherwise, in my opinion it is necessary to stop this unuseful adoption of > the endless upgrades of KDE and GNOME monsters. > They still are much better than WIN. Sure, I'd agree that they're both better than Windows. But that's a relatively recent (say, GNOME/Gtk+ 2.0 and KDE/Qt 3.0) development. So, now that they've caught up to Windows, does that mean they should stop? Is the goal to make Unix as good as Windows, or to make it as good as it can be? > There is no stable standard for applications' developers, under such > environments. GNOME/Gtk+ 2.x is a stable standard. So is KDE/Qt 3.x. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many apps, tools, etc. out there still require GNOME 2.0 or 2.2, or KDE 1.x or 2.x, support. The only exception was the changeover from GNOME/Gtk+ 1.2 to 2.0 (which is why there is still Gtk+ 1.x stuff lying around). As an application developer, I can tell you that upgrading from GNOME 2.0 to 2.2 to 2.4 is pretty much equivalent to going from Win2K to WinXP: Usually, you don't have to do anything. Sometimes, you have to recompile. Occassionally, you have to rewrite a bit of code. Some new features require new code to take advantage of them; some don't. In other words, I don't see the problem you're worried about. > After the failure of Motif, I always suggest the adoption of the stable > Tcl/Tk for the most important projects. It is necessary a bit of 'peace'. The reason people don't use Motif, even though it's now "open," is that it's not very good. The fact is, it's much easier to slap together a GUI for a Python app in Gtk+ than in Motif, and it's also easier to build a powerful, polished GUI in Gtk+ than in Motif--and it'll look better and may even be more functional. And the same is true with Tk. Both Motif and Tk are ugly (and non-themable). Neither provides all the widgets that an application developer is likely to want, and neither makes it as easy to customize widgets, or build new ones out of existing ones. Neither has anything as nice as glade (or MSDev) for rapid GUI development. Also, Motif and Tk are only widget toolkits (like Gtk+ and Qt--and even at that level, they don't proide as much). Neither provides auxiliary libraries like pango, gconf, libxml, etc. And of course neither provides any way to interact with the desktop (e.g., putting up a taskbar notification icon). In short, unlike GNOME and KDE, neither Motif nor Tk is as good as Windows--for users or for developers. As for the upgrades, in addition to the new and improved widgets and tools for developers, there's also the fact that KDE and GNOME keep getting closer together (which is very important to application developers). And don't forget the user applications, sysadmin tools, etc. that are part of KDE and GNOME. For just one example, I think Evolution is the best mail client out there, and kmail is a close second--but a year ago, neither was as good as Outlook Express. My suggestion is that the developers of any project use whichever toolkit they like best that provides the features they need. For me, that's almost always Gtk+ (with or without GNOME), but if you prefer Motif or Tk, well, go ahead. > ¡Stop upgrading, keep a working desktop - stop the fashion system! Well, X11R4 worked for me years ago, but I'm certainly glad I'm not still using that. I'm also glad I'm not using GNOME 1.x anymore. (And I can tell you that upgrading from GNOME 1.2 to GNOME 2.0, much less 2.2 to 2.4, was much easier than going from fvwm2 to enlightenment.)
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