RE: [Java-gnome-developer] Re: What to do in order to make the gn ome development platform rock.

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

Why don't we hand it down to the sub-comittee on technical affairs who
can convene a pow-wow to hammer this issue out and finalize an initial
proposal on deliverables to be ratified by the working group on
technical affairs within a three week timeframe?

;-)

-Seth
On 16 Sep 2001 11:27:29 -0400, Jeffrey Morgan wrote:
> I am in total support for standardizing on a common
> namespace packaging across language bindings or whatever 
> it takes to lower the entry barrier for new developers.  
> Kenneth, you definitely seem to have a passion for this 
> and have given it some thought.  I propose you organize 
> and facilitate a working group comprised of one 
> representative from each language binding project that 
> wants to participate.  The goal of this working group is 
> to deliver recommendations on how we can simplify the
> learning curve new developers face when coming to GNOME.
> I would hope the initial proposal could be delivered
> within a few weeks.  
> 
> -Jeffrey Morgan
> 
> > 
> > Hi Kenneth,
> > Well as someone just begining to meddle in Java I like your 
> > ideas, I am
> > CC'ing it to the java-gnome list also. 
> > 
> > I think giving official status of a set of bindings would 
> > probably also
> > be an idea, for instance there are 3 different Java bindings for GTK+
> > and GNOME underway AFAIK and maybe if one of them got 
> > recognised as the
> > official GNOME bindings the duplication of effort could be minimized.
> > 
> > One thing I do think however is that we should demand that 
> > any language
> > bindings that are to become/get approved as the official 
> > GNOME and GTK+
> > language bindings are that they move into GNOME CVS.
> > 
> > Christian
> > 
> > On Sat, 2001-09-15 at 19:17, Kenneth Rohde Christiansen wrote:
> > > Some thoughs of mine, please read:
> > > 
> > > By attending the university you often hear non-gnome and non-kde
> > > developers discuss different platforms, technologies, kde 
> > and gnome.   
> > > While listening to this I have a bigger understanding why 
> > these people  
> > > don't join our project.
> > > 
> > > One of the reasons is that many people actually don't like 
> > C very much,
> > > and when these people want to code Gnome they go look for 
> > bindings.   
> > > Many Gnome developers think that Gnome is very cool with all it's
> > > binding,
> > > but this thought is not shared with the whole world outside out
> > > community.
> > > 
> > > Many people think that the Gnome development platform is 
> > difficult to
> > > understand. There are lots of libraries, and they are not 
> > organized in a
> > > nice class library. This is possible to do with bindings to OO
> > > languages, but is as far as I know, not done.
> > > 
> > > For instance, Java-GNOME has the following "namespaces"/"packages":
> > > 
> > > gnu.gdk, gnu.gtk, gnu.glade, gnu.gnome
> > > 
> > > This is very close to the C libs, so it would be easy to 
> > switch to Java
> > > from programming Gnome in C. But almost noone does this. 
> > People who want
> > > to use the Java bindings is often people who don't like C.
> > > 
> > > Now the naming is also very unlucky for Java-GNOME as gnu.gnome is
> > > actually gnome-libs, but for people from the outside Gnome 
> > consists of
> > > gtk, gdk, glade, gnome-libs, etc, so the class library 
> > seems weird to
> > > these people. Also the class library for a binding doesn't have to
> > > reflect that it is made by using gdk, gtk or whatever.
> > > 
> > > If we want people to use these bindings we have to make 
> > them easy and
> > > hide implimentation/bindings details.
> > > 
> > > An idea for Java-GNOME could be like this:
> > > 
> > > org.gnome.drawing                       - gdk
> > > org.gnome.ui                            - gtk
> > > org.gnome.ui.extra                      - libgnomeui + bonoboui
> > > org.gnome.ui.glade                      - glade
> > > org.gnome.accessibility                 - atk
> > > org.gnome.containers (or .utils)        - glib containers 
> > wrappers    
> > > org.gnome.canvas                        - libgnomecanvas
> > > org.gnome.vfs                           - gnome-vfs
> > > org.gnome.config                        - gconf or bonobo-conf
> > > org.gnome.bonobo                        - bonobo
> > > org.gnome.bonobo.activation             - bonobo-activation
> > > org.gnome.xml                           - libxml (if it 
> > makes sence to
> > > bind)
> > > org.gnome.print                         - libgnomeprint
> > > --
> > > org.gnome.misc.eel                      - eel
> > > org.gnome.misc.gal                      - gal
> > > org.gnome.misc.panel                    - panel applets
> > > ...etc.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > This doesn't confuse people with the difference with gtk, 
> > gdk and gnome,
> > > and it integrates well with the Java language. All not well 
> > integrated
> > > things have been put in org.gnome.misc and might be moved elsewhere
> > > later.
> > > 
> > > A similar hierachy can be used for C++ bindings.
> > > 
> > > Also, something people don't like about the Gnome bindings 
> > is that none
> > > are OFFICIAL. For people outside our community it seems that the
> > > bindings 
> > > are made by people with no connection to the Gnome 
> > Community, and they
> > > then fear the quality of the bindings, and goes elsewhere.
> > > 
> > > What can we do to make this better? Should we decide on a 
> > class library
> > > that should be followed by binders if they want their bindings to be
> > > official. Do we need some kind of quality control?
> > > 
> > > I really think that we should get some good Java bindings. 
> > Both Sun and
> > > IBM said that they support Gnome, and they both have a 
> > strong Java    
> > > commitment. Cooperation with Sun and IBM about this would 
> > really rock.
> > > Maybe something for the Gnome Foundation?.
> > > 
> > > Also the development pages really scare people away.
> > > 
> > > Take a look at these two pages:
> > > 
> > > http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Cocoa/CocoaTopics.html
> > > http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/
> > > 
> > > We really need something like this. And we need to group our
> > > technologies,
> > > maybe something like this could be an idea?
> > > 
> > > GNOME System Architecture
> > > -------------------------
> > > 
> > > GNOME User Experience (libgnome, glade, gtk, gdk)
> > > --
> > > Bonobo Component System
> > > GNOME Language Framework (Java-GNOME, python, etc)
> > > GNOME Multimedia Framework (gstreamer)
> > > --
> > > Linux/UNIX Kernel
> > > UNIX into the future. GNOME expands on many open souce
> > > and industry standards towards providing UNIX users and
> > > developers with a userfriendly and powerful desktop and
> > > development platform.
> > > 
> > > Anyway, it's just some ideas. Please comment
> > > 
> > > Cheers, Kenneth
> > > 



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