Re: Gtk# in 2.16

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 22:08 -0500, Mike Kestner wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-04-24 at 15:47 -0600, Elijah Newren wrote:
> 
> > To clarify, this means you're targetting Gtk+-2.10 for Gnome 2.16, right?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > Why are you unable to comply with that one -- what would be difficult
> > about putting the API/ABI stable bindings into one package and putting
> > the other bindings in a separate one?  Wouldn't it just mean that
> > people who want to use the extra bindings install both packages?  I
> > feel like I'm missing something because I would have assumed this was
> > the easiest requirement to comply with (though I'm obviously no expert
> > in the area...)
> 
> In my opinion, it would just make more work for me to release Gtk# and
> more work for our users to download and build it, and more work for our
> packagers to package it, etc...  
> 
> My recollection of the initial process that defined the rules was that
> everyone who commented on that particular rule except for Murray thought
> this was not important. 
> 
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/language-bindings/2003-November/msg00013.html

The Java and Python maintainers seem to have grown to like it.

> Murray's primary argument seemed to be about the marketing aspects of
> guaranteeing API stability which a non-platform lib couldn't do.  The
> reality is that we've been able to maintain our API stability guarantee
> despite the presence of Desktop libs in our set.

Do you plan to depend on GtkHtml for ever, or will you remove it from
Gtk# when everybody has stopped using it? What effect will this have on
existing applications?

> I don't personally see the value of the split between Platform/Desktop
> in a language binding.  Maybe if that rule is written in stone, Gtk#
> could be added to the Desktop release instead of the Bindings set.  ;-)

You obviously saw some value to this idea, because you already removed
some of the more flaky stuff from Gtk#.

> FWIW, we have more or less decided that no new libraries will be added
> to Gtk# that are not platform libraries, so we would only need an
> "exemption" on that rule for the existing binding set.
> 
> Technically, gnomeprint is a show-stopper for us.  We expose its API in
> gnome-sharp.dll and therefore could not split it out and still maintain
> our API stability guarantees.

So, GtkHtml is in a different .dll?

-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com