Re: [Thunar-dev] Fwd: Gnome is trying to decrease memory usage.
Xiong Jiang wrote: It's just my personal preference. :) Some people like GTK more while some like QT more. Whichever they like, they always can express their preference. It's not about the business to _evaluate_ the toolkit. IMHO C++ _is_ a little profounded (or in my awkard English, bloated) in features as a language. That's why Java and C# are created and become popular. Again, this is just MHO. Please do not take it as bussiness of evaluating C++. Sorry, I don't get what you are talking about. Do you mean that the language specification for C++ is too complex (if so then Java is also a bloated language)? You might want to check Scheme then. If not, you should enlighten us poor souls, what's the difference between a bloated formal language and a non-bloated formal language. Benedikt ___ Thunar-dev mailing list Thunar-dev@xfce.org http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev
Re: [Thunar-dev] Fwd: Gnome is trying to decrease memory usage.
Xiong Jiang wrote: It's just my personal preference. :) Some people like GTK more while some like QT more. Whichever they like, they always can express their preference. It's not about the business to _evaluate_ the toolkit. IMHO C++ _is_ a little profounded (or in my awkard English, bloated) in features as a language. That's why Java and C# are created and become popular. Again, this is just MHO. Please do not take it as bussiness of evaluating C++. Have fun, What C++ programming experience do you base you 'bloated' opinion on? I ask because it's funny how programmers who don't use C++, or have never taken the time to learn, keep calling it bloated. The key to understanding C++ is simple. It is the programmer using the C++ language that is the problem not the C++ language itself. Jeff. ___ Thunar-dev mailing list Thunar-dev@xfce.org http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev
Re: [Thunar-dev] Fwd: Gnome is trying to decrease memory usage.
I am just a user not a programmer of software based on GTK+ but I feel very sorry if GTK+ is on the track like what you guys expressed in this thread. I like GTK a lot as I always prefer C over bloated (somehow) C++ language. And GTK did very neat work too. I would think that many other people like GTK+ as me too. If too much company interests are played in it, then eventually it will be forked, just like Xorg forking out of XFree86. It's painful but it's still good direction, towards the goal to build software strong, and flexible. XFCE and Thunar will still be using the forked GTK+ then. :)Thanks,XiongOn 9/28/05, Biju Chacko [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Benedikt Meurer wrote: Biju Chacko wrote:Benedikt, any time you and/or any one else wants to make the jump to QT4 I will gladly follow... and take my skills with me. I agree witheverything you have said on this topic. I have been fed up withGTK+/GNOME for years (and Fedora). The root of the problem as I see it is Redhat's control over both projects (the project leaders work forRedhat). This has continually stifled innovation because both projectsare not independent and tend to program with Redhat blinkers on. I have continued to write my C++ library for GTK+ for several reasons. I havealready spentyears on my project and it's hard to throw it all away.When I started out I thought that GTK+ needed all the help it could get... but I was wrong. It is very hard to help either GTK or GNOMEprogrammatically. In the past my concern about moving to QT isWhatprogram would I write if I did? Language bindings are out... I wouldn't know what to program. One thing I am looking forward to is the firststable release of openSUSE next week. Finally I can dump Fedora.Umm, Sun and Novell have a heck of a lot more GNOME guys than we (Red Hat) do. I agree with Jeff except that I don't think that RedHat is the only problem source around. RedHat had the chance to turn Gtk+ into something usable years ago, similar to what Trolltech did to Qt, but they missed the chance. Now that Sun and Novell entered the stage, chances are very low that either of them will do it.I'm not very familiar with the history of GTK+, so I can't comment. I'vejust noticed a new trend of depicting RH as the new M$. Just remember the old saying, Never attribute to malice that which canbe adequetly explained by incompetenceRH makes as many mistakes as the next company ...-- b___ Thunar-dev mailing listThunar-dev@xfce.orghttp://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev ___ Thunar-dev mailing list Thunar-dev@xfce.org http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev
Re: [Thunar-dev] Fwd: Gnome is trying to decrease memory usage.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 9/29/2005 10:19 AM, Xiong Jiang wrote: I am just a user not a programmer of software based on GTK+ but I feel very sorry if GTK+ is on the track like what you guys expressed in this thread. I like GTK a lot as I always prefer C over bloated (somehow) C++ language. And GTK did very neat work too. I would think that many other people like GTK+ as me too. At the risk of sounding like an elitist ass (not that this would be the first time), if you think C++ is bloated, you have no business evaluating the merits of a GUI toolkit. -brian -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) iD8DBQFDPHMh6XyW6VEeAnsRArbfAJ9lJscJF/19wjVCmL5EQAEfHtmxDACg8Jg+ IxwyxutlfyryVa+NqoQfqYA= =Dr8X -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Thunar-dev mailing list Thunar-dev@xfce.org http://foo-projects.org/mailman/listinfo/thunar-dev
Re: [Thunar-dev] Fwd: Gnome is trying to decrease memory usage.
Erik Harrison wrote: I think ultimately we just need to be active in the Gtk+ community so that it as much as possible remains useful to us. It isn't going to become broken in the short term. The various changes coming out of project Ridley could go either way. It could totally screw up Gtk+ as a platform, and it could finally solidify it as a more complete platform, getting in some critical features (like printing support) while at the same time permitting applications to cut silly Gnome requirements. Most likely, this is neither Gtk+'s glorious rebirth or the fabled falling of the sky. Picking a new toolkit would involve a lot of thought and planning - and if we saw signifigant reason to move all of Xfce off of Gtk+ I suspect that we would not be alone - perhaps there would be enough of us to maintain Gtk+ 2.8 indefinately. Who knows. It's all wild speculation at this point. It's not just Project Ridley, that's only one point. There are several issues with Gtk+, for example: - Deployment/Installation: Updating/Installing Gtk+ with all its requirements is so damn complex, esp. if you happen to use one of the 99% of all systems, that's not currently being used by one of the Gtk+ core developers. And this causes trouble for all other projects that depend on Gtk+, esp. Xfce, where we introduce damn stupid and damn unnecesary work-arounds to be able to run with Gtk 2.0 or Gtk 2.2. There's no excuse here, this is just stupid and broken, and a real waste of time and energy (and in case of Xfce, where we have only a few developers, it is frustrating to waste this little manpower to work-around the Gtk deployment issues). On the other hand Qt (just an example) is pretty easy to install/upgrade, just untar in /path/to/newqt, configure, make and you're done (no matter if you use a mainstream linux or a not-so-mainstream system like Win32 or Solaris). - Type/Object System: Nice, but useless. The GObject type system has a few oddities (for example, you're unable to unregister types, etc.), but in general its a nice way to add some structure to C code. But that doesn't matter, as it's too complex and poorly documented, and nobody's using it. Just check the average Gtk/C based project: Atleast 90% of them invent their own ways of structuring code and reinvent most of the features offered by the GObject type system, and only use the system if absolutely necessary (for language bindings or widget libraries). So what good is the best system if nobody's using it? Right, it's useless and should be improved/replaced. Compare this to the average Qt based project, where people make heavy use of C++ classes and the extensions provided by Qt. So, it's indeed possible to develop a basic framework that will be heavily used by application developers. - Documentation/Support: As already mentioned, the available documentation is useless or incomplete compared to for example the documentation available for OSX developers, Windows developers and Qt developers. I solved this problem for myself by checking the Gtk+ source code directly when necessary, but this is honestly by no way a good solution. Good documentation is important for a framework like Gtk+. - Memory/Performance overhead: As said earlier, the problem is not necessarily located in Gtk+ itself, but the memory management and the overall complexity of certain parts of the libraries cause trouble for application developers and that in turn leads to the overall overhead for the applications. Gtks primary user, GNOME, is a good example for the problem. To be fair, it's not only Gtks fault, it's also caused by the fact that C as a programming language is not really well suited for high level application development. - Language bindings: It is said that Gtk is very binding-friendly, but if you take a closer look, you'll discover that writing a new language binding for Gtk (indepent of the binding language) takes a LOT of time and effort. And running an application that utilizes one of the available language bindings involves quite a lot of overhead (both performance and memory). A common runtime (like for example .NET) would not only save time and effort, but would also help to get more people involved. It doesn't need to be .NET, that's just an example. And there are several more, but I guess you got the point. Note that I didn't say that Gtk is just a bad piece of software, I just said it features many problems, and atleast all of the above are indeed solvable. And to avoid confusion: I didn't say that Xfce should switch to another toolkit. I just said, it'd be nice if Xfce would switch as a whole. I'm talking about Thunar here (that's why it's on thunar-dev instead of xfce4-dev). And I'm not talking about switching right now. I'm currently looking for (read: evaluating) alternatives and the most promising for Thunar is Qt4. I could also imagine a KDE4-based Thunar, as the goals are pretty to those of KDE4 (and no that's not the look funky goal). I'm
