Re: module viewer

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Wed, Oct 27, 1999 at 11:10:04AM +0300, Ali Abdin wrote:
> There deffinately is some bloat when linking to libgnome and/or 
> libgnomeui as opposed to pure GTK+. All the Gnome libs does (Gtk+ wise) 
> is provide a convient wrapper for it. The underlying code DOES get 

Gnome libs are not a wrapper at all.  GNOME apps still use pure GTK where
possible.  GNOME adds on to GTK+ providing it with 

> executed. There are MANY MANY things in a lib that just won't get 
> executed (gnome-dns, gnome-score, etc). And some people DO like to make 
> staticly-linked apps (for commercial reasons???) so it'll cause big bloat 
> that wise. Note: I think Havoc Pennington(sp?) raised this issue. Touche on 
> the Internationalization and Session management. But 
> I don't think session management really is a strong requirement for a 
> small simple app (some stuff just doesn't need to be remembered). Again, not 
> every 
> app uses MDI - so if you're not gonna use it, why would you need GNOME. 
> As for the buttons and menus - not really that 'essential' (i.e. I'm 
> gonna port a Gtk+ app to GNOME because of some stock icons in GNOME??? I 
> can use the icons in plain Gtk+)

It's not just MDI, session managment and stock items.  You haven't mentioned
why you wouldn't use the standard dialogs, GnomeApp and it's framework, the
canvas, metadata, simple configuration,  and the lot of usefull GUI widgets,
such as the entries.  It's hard to find an app that wouldn't gain from using
GnomeApp for it's main window.

As far as I'm concerned it's completely wasteful of time and memory if you
write every little feature from scratch, just to keep a "gtk only" approach.
Even for commercial apps, I mentioned that just about everywhere you have
GTK+, you have gnome-libs installed.

Not every app will use every feature, and you'll probably get by with GTK+
alone, but your app will have less features or inconsistent features.

> Thats an assumption. Some people install Gtk+ and not GNOME - some of 
> those people include other non-Linux OS's - some people don't use GNOME 
> because of lack of system support or lack of GNU tools to build it. There 
> also aren't many binary versions of GNOME. In fact, the only ones I've 
> seen are the Gurulabs i386 RPMS

Some people don't install GTK+.  Some people don't install imlib, some people
don't install this or that.  It's a small price to pay for consistency and
ease of programming.

> again, that is an assumption. Yes, some people do install gnome-libs, 
> gnome-core, kde-libs, and kde-core. But others don't. Why the hell should 
> I install all of KDE just to use some Qt apps that I have. Also, believe 
> it or not, some people are strapped for hard disk space. Some people find 
> their distribution install both GNOME and KDE, but they only use GNOME so 
> they delete KDE - and vice versa

Why should I install X just to use netscape.  Not to mention that I KDE libs
won't take up that much of your HD, and none of your memory if you don't use
it.  Just look through your package listing and I'm sure you'll find a lot of
other things which you don't use, but keep "just in case".  These are just
assumptions on your part.  Just because there are people that can't or don't
want to install a particular library doesn't mean that you should not use
that lib.  Why not just skip it all and write directly with XLib, you'll
reach a much larger audience that way.

> Again, why is it better to write it as a GNOME app. It works in Gtk+. 
> It's a simple program that won't use any fancy libart or gnome-config or 
> session management. 

Most gnome programs don't do anything fancy, does this mean they should be
plain GTK+?  Again, I stress consistency.

> Oh as for internationalization which you mentioned above - Thats not 
> really GNOME now is it - isn't that xgettext related?

Part and part.  GNOME has some support in it.  For one, a lot of standard
things are already translated for you.

> People shouldn't feel obligated to port Gtk+ apps to GNOME. They work, 
> they fit in with widget styles/themes. If they plan to use stuff that 
> will look BETTER in GNOME (MDI,etc.) then they should consider, but if 
> not then there is no /NEED/ to. Again, somebody could port it for fun or 
> just for the heck of it. But you shouldn't feel OBLIGATED to do it.

There should be a need to.  But people should start with developing GNOME as
it will save them a lot of time and effort.

> just my opinion ;)

just mine as well :)

George

-- 
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George Lebl <jirka@5z.com> http://www.5z.com/jirka/
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