Re: gnome-games 2.17.2

[Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek rudy mif pg gda pl>]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006, Callum McKenzie wrote:
[..]
> > In this case it is completly not true.
> > Fotconfig can be configured to use libxml (use --enable-libxml2 in
> > configure parametres). The same situaction is in case for example dbis
> > (but not in case dbus-glib .. Q: why ?)
> I have no idea about why others have made their decisions, or for that
> matter why distributions like Ubuntu don't compile fontconfig with
> libxml. A bit of a look at the code tells me why gnome-games now
> requires expat now: the ggz libraries.
> Unfortunately we (the free-software community that is) are cursed with
> two good XML implementations.

If one from this two is good why use more than one ?

> The expat API suits some people more than
> the libxml API and vice versa. So neither is dominant. It is all very
> well for GNOME to stipulate libxml as the preferred library, but when
> external libraries have made the other choice we're a bit stuck.
>
> In any case it doesn't really matter.

If you don't care how many memory uses all programs currently runed on 
your desktop (?) .. sign this and put in your sig :)

> The real killer for GNOME apps and
> libraries is all the cruft that libgnomeui drags in (this is being
> worked on, see Project Ridley or LibgnomeMustDie on live.gnome.org).
> Further, I believe that neither XML library has a big overhead of
> unshared data. In other words you won't win until *all* apps on your
> system use only one of either expat or libxml.

OK but why make this target harder to gain by enlarging libraries 
enthropy in gnome-games 2.17.* ?
Again: gnome-games 2.17.* now uses two XML parser libraries.

> Yes, you are paying a price for developer convenience, but fixing it
> doesn't start with gnome-games.
>
> > [..]
> > > BTW glib provides its own xml-lite parser. So there are three...
> >
> > This is next known stupididy.
> > Most of the packages uses standalone XML parsers. I don't know even one
> > package which uses this parser.
> > XML parser is neccessary for many non glib/gtk+/gnome packages, so
> > embedding this in glib only enlarges current libraries enthropy.
> At the very least Mahjongg uses the glib "xml" parser. The glib parser
> is there for a very specific kind of problem: those cases where you
> don't want a full XML parser, but you want something light and easy to
> use that parses some tagged text. If I recall correctly, I did seriously
> consider using libxml when I wrote the Mahjongg code, but it just wasn't
> worth the effort.

Is it realy true ?

# ldd /usr/bin/mahjongg | grep xml
        libxml2.so.2 => /usr/lib64/libxml2.so.2 (0x0000003cc3400000)

Above was linked with -Wl,--as-needed so this program uses libxml2 
straight.
Even if it is true is it realy wort if Mahjongg uses for other XML 
operations libxml2 ? If light XML parser in glib is only for Mahjongg this
is kind I don't know how to name this .. mistake ?

kloczek
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
*Ludzie nie mają problemów, tylko sobie sami je stwarzają*
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tomasz Kłoczko, sys adm @zie.pg.gda.pl|*e-mail: kloczek rudy mif pg gda pl*