Re: GNOME 3.0 in March 2011

[Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu sugarlabs org>]

On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 13:56, John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com> wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-08-07 at 13:24 +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 12:20, John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com> wrote:
>> > On Sat, 2010-08-07 at 11:12 +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Alternatively, if distros were able to support the combination
>> >> Python2+Gtk2+PyGObjectWithIntrospection
>> >
>> > Just to be clear, do you mean that distributions will likely ship
>> >
>> > Python2+PyGtk2+(Gtk2-.gir)+(PyGobjectWithIntrospection+(Gtk3+.gir))
>> >
>> > next cycle? I.e. GObject introspection support should be disabled for
>> > Gtk2 builds?
>>
>> This is getting confusing ;)
>
> Agree.
>
>>
>> My understanding is that both Fedora 14 and Ubuntu Maverick will ship with:
>>
>> - gobject-introspection
>> - pygobject with introspection support
>
> Good, but,
>
>> - typelibs for gtk2
>> - python 2.x
>>
>> This means that authors of pygtk-based applications will be able to
>> port their apps to introspection in those distros without having to
>> build additional software.
>
> I think this combination is not very useful. We are telling python
> developers to port a pygtk app (that already works) to the new pygobject
> gobject-introspection api, and all they will get is a slightly different
> way of accessing the same gtk-2.X API, but likely also a new set of bugs
> to deal with. That is not to say that pygobject+gobject introspection is
> buggy, but surely it won't be perfect to start with.

That's true and an important remark to make and keep in mind, but also
we won't reach stability if people don't start using it.

> I think a better story is to tell people that they should port their
> pygtk apps to pygobject+gobject-introspection and then they get gtk-3
> new features, new API, and ponies for free.

Well, even if they don't get gtk3, they will get GSettings, GDBus,
G(tk)Application, etc. Could that be enough of an incentive?

Regards,

Tomeu

> This means I suggest typelibs for gtk-2 should not be built, they should
> only be built for gtk-3. Distros will need to ship both gtk versions,
> but I expect they will do that anyway (or gtk-2.90 snapshots at least).
>
>>
>> If we told them to port their apps to Gtk3 and Python 3 ASAP, they
>> would need to build stuff, so probably lots of people would wait 6
>> months more to start porting. So most ported apps would start
>> appearing in distros in +12 months.
>
> I am not sure what implications the Python3 stuff would have.
>
> John
>
>