Re: What's wrong with Dia the way it is?

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon yandex ru>]

Greetings, Steve Litt!

> What's wrong with Dia just the way it is? It works. It's exportable
> into Inkscape for conversion to SVG. 

"It works" is the most you can say about it.
When you start to actually USE it, you immediately discover different small
annoyances, the more - the deeper you dive.
Even its SVG export (which is supposed to be its primary use outside itself)
is a dirty mess.

> Sure, I have a few qualms with the way Dia works, mainly having to do
> with the relationship between text and shapes, but perhaps some good
> workaround documentation would settle that.

We'd all (I think I can safely say that) would prefer to have a program where
you don't have to use workarounds for things you do daily.

> I'd love to have Visio-quality diagram components,

It's largely possible already, you can design any types of shapes.
But the in-program treatment is a little bit lacking, and you won't see the
results until export.

> and perhaps if somebody writes some docs on how to make your own components
> with the connection points *you* want, that will be solved.

Basically - SVG.
All high-quality shapes are hand-made.

> Plus the fact that if everyone authoring new components puts them together
> in an online hierarchical library, perhaps with keyword search, our diagrams
> could start to rival those of visio users.

That's a separate project, and, by the way, such a repository exists (or it
was, at one point).

> If some of the libraries used by Dia are in the process of being
> deprecated, then those certainly must be replaced by their successors.
> But other than that, why the emphasis on maintenance?

Replacing the whole program UI is not a fingersnap activity.
And THAT is what needs a replacement, as the UI library used by Dia is not
supported for a decade.

> Sometimes something's so good it needs no more maintenance (fetchmail is one
> example).

Even fetchmail requires regular maintenance, as new protocols take place.

> Right now Dia works for people on all sorts of computers.

Barely works. For me at least.

> It's very DIYable. My experience has been that in many cases, people in a
> hurry to "improve" software end up making it into a buggy, DIY-not-allowed
> monolithic entanglement.

It would require to rewrite Dia entirely to rip out things that build it. I
doubt anybody want to take on such task.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Thursday, December 6, 2018 3:32:42

Sorry for my terrible english...