I don't know if I'm entitled to discuss this, because I'm not FLTK 1|2 developer, I'm just using it, but since people who actually work on it, initiated this discussion here, I'm assuming they would also like to hear opinions of library users. So here's my crop.
I must say that I'm really surprised by the fact that it is actually practically deciding whethet to drop FLTK 2.x or not. Yes, droping is a proper term, because after several years (!!?) it's still in Alpha stage, and now people want to put it aside even further, until they make FLTK 1.x even better!? I don't understand, earlier I was talking to some people whether one should even consider FLTK because even it is a GPL-ed open source project, ie. noone is paying those folk to work on it, it is still a *very* long time for FLTK 2.x to be almost exactly where it was at the start. You people actually debate over how much library should be low level, well is'nt it the whole point of one GUI library, to make things more easier to use (end make it [more] portable)? If it's not, than why bother with C++, FLTK 1.x anyway uses it very little so IMO FLTK 1.x might be even more smaller (don't know if faster) if it's (re)written entirely in C, and with much more ASM routines. I'm really not trying to be ironcih, but after reading "arguments" that Greg and others are putting, I really mean that. I'm using FLTK 2.x, yes, mainly because of cleaner interface, API and UTF8 support, but if you guys are gonna throw that all away just so you can every time when new 1.x version emerges, try to give it a tiny little "finilizing" touch, I personally wont stick and wait for another several years for FLTK 2.x to become even Beta. Forgive me for "like ultimatum" tone, but I'm seriously considering replacing FLTK entirely with FOX toolkit. There really is no argument like "well we will leave those people using FLTK 1.x to wait in limbo, while we concentrate on FLTK 2.x", because, unlike FLTK 2.x, FLTK 1.x has reached not Alpha, not Beta but a *stable* state. It's up to you, it seems that there are also some other ideologicaly issues, whether it should really use C++, how much low level should it be, what about tradition and so on, and not to be pesimistic, but I think that FLTK 1.x people are more louder and that after this debate is over, things will probably be pretty much the same as now: work on FLTK 1.x will continue untill it has support for Wii remote controllers, and FLTK 2.x will be left in basement with occasional some bug fixes once or twice in a year. Best whishes. _______________________________________________ fltk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/fltk
