Re: it's scary

[Michael Meeks <michael helixcode com>]

Hi Sergio,

On Mon, 29 May 2000, Sergio A. Kessler wrote:
> it's scary to see what was in the beginnings a project where things must be
> simple to take this directions ...

	I think perhaps you misunderstand the process of design with the
result. It is vital important that we all have a crystal clear
understanding of what people mean by and want from monikers. This means
that we must use precision, technical language and argue extensively and
in great detail to get it right. This does not mean the result will be
complicated whatsoever.

> and you know what's scary ? it's scary to see very smart people like
> maciej, who *work full* time in Gnome, that have to ask ~= "what the
> hell is a moniker and why do I need one ?" leave alone the poor
> programmer that just have a few hours in the week to contribute
> something ...

	I am happy to ask what a moniker is, since I have only a vague
understanding that it is a way to tie activation,component and data
location information into a virtual component  link. the concept is
elegant and simple. Exactly what is meant by a moniker is worth
understanding however, along with how it will be implemented which is I
suspect what was being asked.

> I don't think people want to buy M$ books to understand Gnome, it should
> be simpler...

	If you find the discussion too complex, then don't follow it junk
the thread. Perhaps you should try following some of the Gtk object system
discussion past and present; merely because the issues are hard and the
problem space huge and difficult to explain does not mean the result will
be complex.

> and, btw, it is my wish that gnome make more commitments to XML, (AFAIK is
> only used as file formats for apps) is a nice standard and even some
> companies are starting to use it as middleware (M$ included) ...
> I don't know, maybe xml can solve some things without the need to introduce
> new concepts every day ...

	Well, what the hell is XML, I don't see how it can be used as
middleware.

> from Raph Levien:
> "One of the focusses of GNOME has been simplicity. However, as the platform
> matures and there is pressure to add new features, it's growing more
> complex. Bonobo, for example, is now about 100k lines of code. For something
> that's supposed to be a simple component framework, that's quite a lot of
> code. That's going to make it much harder for people to grok the entire
> system, especially new people coming on board."

	I repsect Raph's opinion a lot, but this is just not true. The
core bonobo code in bonobo/bonobo has the following misleading metrics:
65,000 + 10,00 [c+h] raw newlines, when you delete the stubs, skels etc.
you find a different story: 30,000 + 4000 [c+h] raw newlines. this is not
a complicated project yet. Furthermore the C wrappers are designed to make
things extremely simple.

> from Matthias Kalle Dalheimer:
> "you have to learn a lot first, and since we are dependent on other
> developers that develop things in their spare time for fun, we cannot ask
> them to first study CORBA for a few months before they can write a simple 
> KDE application"

	Of course, and we don't. This is a blatant implicit
misrepresentation of the Gnome position. Read
bonobo/samples/controls/bonobo-clock-control.c [ ignore the OAF switch
that will go soon ]. Tell me if you see any CORBA at all ? let me know if
it is too difficult to understand, we are constantly working to make
Bonobo easy to use.

	I didn't find this criticism overly constructive, perhaps if you
are finding some part hard to understand you could ask a more focused
question.

	Regards,

		Michael.

-- 
 mmeeks@gnu.org  <><, Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot