Re: libglade frustration redux

["Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 cornell edu>]

Gerald I. Evenden wrote:

> 2. A side thread suggested that in order to understand the usage of a system 
> like libglade one should study the source.

I think that's pretty standard practice where any open source
library/development system is concerned.  Having full reference
documentation, tutorials, etc. is great, but you can't expect them
(unless you're willing to pay for them to be written, or write them
yourself).  Source code inspection is always an option.

Note that I don't think there was much of a suggestion to inspect the
libglade source; just that there are example programs  (with source, of
course) included in the libglade source tarball.  Not really the same
thing at all.  Tristan (I think) even asked how these could be made more
obvious/available, but didn't receive a decent reply AFAIK.

>  Hmmm.  To use the C (or any 
> compiler) I should study the source code for the compiler???

Bad analogy.  A compiler is a user-space application.  libglade is a
library intended to be used by developers.

> To use the math library I should study the library's source??

That's one of your options, yes.  If you don't know the name of a
particular function in the math library, seems to me that the fastest
place to look would be /usr/include/math.h.  Then you can look at a man
page or other reference documentation, or, if needed, look at the .c
file where the implementation is (I think this would be pretty rare).

> I did mess with the mathlib 
> source many years ago when the function 'hypot' was poorly implemented but I 
> have not done such a thing since.

That's different.  It's usually not necessary to understand the
implementation of a particular function to be able to use it (unless
it's poorly implemented as in this case and the semantics are weird).
This doesn't really apply to libglade.

> And read the C compiler code for 
> understanding of how to use C---you have to be kidding.

Who has to be kidding?   You're the one suggesting this is necessary,
not anyone else.

> 3. Getting back to libglade.  I have searched through many pages of google to 
> find either a decent reference and/or tutorial for libglade.  A couple of 
> tutorials make halfway attempts but ultimately fail because they have no 
> reference manual to rely on---among other failings.  Finding a libglade 
> reference manual is a total failure.

Then that's your failure, not libglade's:

http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/libglade/index.html

There's a very simple tutorial here:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/libglade/index.html
... which also includes instructions on how to link applications that
use libglade.

> There are a couple of sites which claim 
> to be a reference manual but I find them totally inadequate.

Please explain why the site referenced above is inadequate.

>  There is NO 
> reference manual for libglade that can compared to what is available for GTK.

The manual I linked to is in the exact same format as the reference
manual for GTK.  Glancing at the per-function documentation of the
libglade reference, the amount and quality of information there seems
comparable to that provided for GTK.

> Even the GTK reference is questionable as I find reference to GTK functions 
> that are not in the GTK index nor locatable in sections dealing with the 
> widget involved.

Then you're welcome to bring that to the attention of the developers,
file a bug on Bugzilla, or -- most helpfully -- provide a documentation
patch.

> I would love to be proved wrong about libglade documentation so please flame 
> me if I am and point out my sins.

Your sense of entitlement about this stuff is a bit silly.  Stop
complaining about things that are free unless you want to a) spend the
time to improve it yourself, or b) pay someone else to do it.

        -brian