Re: GConf debate ... the hermenutical key.

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com> writes:

> > > Yes, GConf was first. But what is wrong when someone tries to make things
> > > a little better. For example we can use CORBA_any now - so there is no
> > > longer any reason to use GConfValue.
> > > 
> > 
> >  -> we already released that API and have to support it
> 
> We are talking GNOME 2.0 here.  And we have broken more APIs for this
> release that I can list in the next couple of hours (speaking of Gtk+
> only here). 

I can't let this pass. Those who don't want to depend on Miguel can
get the _complete_ list at:

 gtk+/docs/Changes-2.0.txt

Yes, it's 367 lines long, but I think you'd have no real problem
listing all the changes in that file in 2 hours. And the _vast_
majority of these are changes with absolutely no consequence to the
average GTK+ application or even the average GTK+ widget.

It doesn't really matter to most people that:

* Inserting and deleting text in GtkEntry though functions such
  as gtk_entry_insert_text() now leave the cursor at its original
  position in the text instead of moving it to the location of
  the insertion/deletion.

The idea we just went randomly breaking stuff because we could
is nonsense. When we could keep the interface the same we did. 
The number of interfaces we are going to _remove_ from GTK+
can be counted on the fingers of one hand. 

Are you going to equate GConf with GtkPacker? With GdkColorContext?

And see my earlier comments about difference in timescales on
interfaces changes for GTK+ vs. changes that we make between
GNOME-1.4 and GNOME-2.0.

> Few applications use GConf and it would take little effort to migrate
> them to a better system.  The only limitation to do such migration
> would be pride.  

I think the way to get things resolved is to stop making inflammatory
statements like this and concentrate on real technical issues
like:

 - What's the best way of providing the marvels of monikers to
   programmers.
 - How we preserve user's settings as they migrate to GNOME-2.0
 - How we satisfy the requests of sysadmins who want a lot
   of flexibility in the configuration mechanism.

Regards,
                                        Owen