As many of you know, this past weekend, MoOm made an initial import of
ETK, an E ToolKit modelled after
EWL (E Widget Library). Unbeknownst to many of us, a decision had been
made that it was time for EWL t
o face (in true e fashion) a Total Rewrite. However, those left in the
dark included the main EWL devel
opers, causing ETK to have a less than welcome reaction.
Today on IRC, there was a rather heated discussion about why ETK was
written whether or not EWL should
be scrapped. I'll try to sort through the emotion...
(NB: neither RbdPngn nor MoOm, the two lead devs of EWL & ETK
respectively were present for this discus
sion).
What follows is _my_ take on the two camps views.
First, the ETK perspective:
1) EWL just doesn't FEEL right. Meaning: When you open up an EWL
application (e.g. e_util_eapp_edit), t
hings don't respond the way one would expect. Resizing is often buggy,
cursors / highlighting in text f
ields is strange, etc.
2) It would take longer to learn the EWL internals to be able to
meaningfully contribute than it would
to simply start afresh.
3) EWL was designed for Ebits and the original incarnations of Evas and
Ecore. The many moves to newer
libraries (Edje, modern Evas/Ecore), although commendable, may have
introduced a number of bugs.
From the EWL camp:
1) The issues raised with EWL are issues with specific widgets, that
have little to do with the fundame
ntal design.
2) By starting over, we lose the collective knowledge that is in EWL.
3) Current EWL development has focused on moving to new API's
(textblock2 e.g.) and optimizing low leve
l performance (object cache, etc). The display bugs with the individual
widgets, although more noticeab
le to the end user, are less important at the moment.
So, now we find ourselves facing a difficult point. Very few of us have
put forth any effort to learn E
WLs internals, and thus, judge it based on the feel of an ewl
application. Ostensibly small issues with
packing box layout and text box cursors (and the default theme, which I
spent all of an hour on one we
ekend a few years ago...) make it feel unprofessional.
It seems as though no one who proposed a rewrite had taken the time to
truly learn EWL's internals and
point out the design flaws that warranted a complete rewrite. But, on
the same token, if the plethora o
f layout issues are really in the higher level widgets, why have they
not been fixed over all these yea
rs?
I can't answer, as I also have little idea about the inner workings of EWL.
However, I do think that IF a rewrite IS necessary, we should discuss
the reasons openly, and not slap
long time developers in the face with a project that completely
supplants their baby.
So, I'm holding off judgement. I agree that from a users perspective,
EWL leaves a lot to be desired. B
ut, I've yet to be convinced that this is due to any fundamental design
flaw in EWL that warrant a tota
l rewrite. (The majority of the visible issues seem to be h/vbox layout
problems to me -- but again, I
don't know enough to really say).
Okay. Enough of my rambling. I just want to get this out there so we can
start some real discussion and
make a real decision, that even though painful to one side or the other
is at least explained and just
ified...
--
rephorm
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