Re: Did GNOME go 1.0 too early?

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows brown edu>]

> 
> >   gnome-libs is OK, but I've found gnome-core to be in need of a bit more
> > bug-checking.  Panel tends to be somewhat flaky, bad applets take it down,
> > gnome-pager needs..quite a bit more work..and it generally feels unfinished.
> > I give it two weeks to a month to completion--probably 2 weeks given the recent
> > rate of bugfixing around here.
> 
> If you're using Gnome-session, the panel will always recover quickly after a panel crash.
> On my system, even this happens very rarely, though.  Also, Gnome-pager seems to work
> quite fine to me.  Please explain what your problems with it are.

  First I should say that the rate of bugfixing has amazed me--when I wrote this
I was running CVS 1 day prior to Gnome 1.0.  A significant number of bugs
went poof when I upgraded.  I've still got a few hanging around that
I think could and should have been zapped before 1.0...but it's a little
late for that now and they aren't critical I suppose..lots of visual quirks ;)
Will the cow-monkey be wearing a brown paper bag next time we see it?

  gnome-pager has stopped misbehaving.  I eat my words on that.  (it still
crashes now and then and there are a few minor quirks but it's bearable..)  One
thing left though..last I checked, it killed wmaker.  That could be wmaker,
though.

> And perhaps more importantly, it gives application developers a stable target
> to develop for, so that when Gnome 1.2 hits, it will not only be better than
> ever, but have a larger collection of quality apps than ever as well.

  I can see that.

> In other words, this release isn't nearly so important for getting Gnome into
> common use on the desktop as it is at getting a nice steady increase in the overall
> usability and developability of the Linux environment.  And that is a goal
> that it accomplishes very nicely.


  Ok.

> >   All those bugs are bugs that I have observed and posted--often several times--
> > often to the BTS and the mailing list.  Other than fixing them myself, I don't
> > know what else I can do, and I don't have time to fix every little glitch
> > someone adds to Gnome... :-(
> 
> Well, I can assure you that the developers are not sitting around wishing they
> had stuff to do.  :)

  I understand.  A lot of them went away silently when I upgraded to 1.0.  I
was assuming they were still in because they weren't zapped from the BTS.

  (another possibility is that it has to do with my system--I nuked my old
   Gnome installation before I got yesterday's CVS)

> > 1.0 doesn't really have to be perfect but is
> > it asking too much that it not have blatant bugs?
> 
> Please give examples of blatant bugs in Gnome-core or Gnome-libs, please.

  gnome-libs is absolutely fine.

  The panel still feels fragile.  The multiload_applet doesn't start and I
don't know whether ill-behaved applets can still kill panel (my worst concern).
But I think it's gotten a lot better.  I'm really starting to suspect that I
should have done rm -rf /usr/local/gnome a lot earlier than I did...

  I think I should offer--belated--congratulations to the developers for getting
it as stable as it is.  My estimate of time-to-real-1.0 has gone down to a
week.:-)  So I don't think it'll be too much of a problem that 1.0 was
released slightly early.

> >   Unfortunately, I'm not much of a developer.  I'm very interested, though, in
> > hearing the _reasons_ for this release, given the number of blatant bugs
> > here.  I will continue to use Gnome, but I am worried that 'normal users'
> > (whatever that means) will be scared off by the instability.  (Of course,
> > Windows doesn't scare them..but Gnome is not quite as stable as Windows in
> > a lot of ways..and people who use Linux often care about stability...)
> 
> Agreed.  Gnome is neither as stable, nor as easy to use, nor as powerful as
> Win95.  This will change with time.

  I agree.  I may have..er..overreacted a bit.  After poking around the
core stuff it seems almost stable.

<PARANOID>
  Were you guys hiding an extra, bugfixed CVS tree somewhere?  I could swear
Gnome was crashing on me five times as much just two or three days ago!
</PARANOID>

  Apologies to everyone.  As if that helps...

  Daniel

-- 
  Man is timid; he no longer says 'I think' or 'I am' but quotes some prophet
 or sage.
   -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"