using deprecated gnome_mime instead of gnome_vfs_mime (was file moniker patch)

[Darin Adler <darin eazel com>]

on 11/30/00 9:07 AM, Miguel de Icaza at miguel helixcode com wrote:

>> That's nice, but you haven't addressed the technical issue of the fact
>> that gnome_mime_* is a deprecated API. What should be used instead, if
>> not the gnome_vfs_mime_* API? I don't remember you or anyone else
>> obecting when John Sullivan proposed moving this functionality to
>> gnome-vfs many months ago.
> 
> You guys needed extensions that were binary incompatible, that is why
> I could not raise any exception.  You guys did not know what you
> wanted: you wanted to experiment with it, hence it did not belong in
> gnome-libs for the time being.

Miguel, this just reads like nonsense to me.

We at Eazel are using gnome-vfs because you told us too. Now you are saying
that bonobo should not depend on gnome-vfs, even though it needs things like
the MIME database that are now part of gnome-vfs. You are causing big
trouble by doing this.

What did we do to poison gnome-vfs that you no longer want to use it?

Months ago, we proposed moving the MIME features into gnome-vfs. Not as a
temporary measure for hacking, but as a permanent home for this
functionality in GNOME. Since the only code using the MIME database
functions was in gmc, it seemed like a change that would cause no trouble.
Although the MIME calls could theoretically be used by other programs, we
couldn't find any besides gmc. We asked for feedback and got a lot that said
this is the right direction. And we publicly announced that the old database
was deprecated and kept around only for gmc.

Now you say that using this interface is a good idea?

Are you suggesting keeping two copies of the MIME database? One in gnome-vfs
and another where?

This is technical garbage -- perhaps you have some non-technical reason for
doing this. I really don't understand your constant remarks that we must not
have bonobo depend on gnome-vfs except perhaps in some sense of gnome-vfs
being tainted because the Eazel hackers work on it.

>> How about proposing a good solution instead of saying what you don't
>> want to do.
> 
> I am not proposing a solution, I am pointing out that we should not
> have a gnome-vfs dependency in Bonobo for such a trivial hack
> (trivial, because it is not even in the core)

Why do you call the MIME database and MIME sniffing a trivial hack? It's a
piece of code that's hard to get right, and we've been working on making it
better for months.

I also don't know what "the core" is that you refer to that it is not in.

You're making it very hard to work on GNOME for people who can't read your
mind, like me.

    -- Darin