RE: qt vs gtk

["Andersen, Jan" <jandersen informatica com>]

As someone who has recently stopped using GNOME, let me give my viewpoint, then, about why I have stopped 
using it. It isn't so much knee-jerk, I would hope, as simple, everyday usefulness. It was not an easy 
decision for me to leave and start using KDE - I have used GNOME from the beginning and preferred it over KDE.

With any tool that provides as much functionality as a desktop, there will inevitably be a number of 
irritating issues; this is true for KDE as well. But I think what really did it for me, in the end, was the 
trend towards oversimplification - and what I feel is the complete lack of will to heed any call for change 
that I sense from the developers. 

In my view nothing would be lost to the GNOME community by not cutting away features that are actually useful 
to some users. The default values could still be set to "simple", the parameter file could even be well 
hidden if need be. And don't try to tell me that it is beyond the capabilities of the GNOME developers to 
make things this way; it wouldn't even make it harder to program or maintain, on the contrary, parametrising 
things generally makes it easier in my experience (25+ years). So it comes down to philosophy, if that is the 
right word, or choice - a conscious choice has been made to do it this way despite what a number of the 
expert users have had to say. So where is this trend going to stop? Nobody has been willing to say - in 
principle it could go all the way to where we have a system that goes squeek when you push the big plastic 
flower and can speak baby babble.

A couple of examples of what I mean - they are not big, overwhelming issues, but small irritations that I 
remember because I have found KDE gives me what I wish in this respect:

1. X used to display a small "label" containing the position and size of a window when you moved it. That was 
one feature I found hugely useful; I usually have 9 desktops and organise my applications with fixed 
dimensions and positions different desktops - like Pidgin on desk 1, thunderbird and firefox on desk 2, a 
number of xterms on desk 3 etc, all started from scripts with positions and dimensions that I have taken from 
the little "dimension label". I can't do that in GNOME and find the right position and dimension takes a 
large amount of trial and error. Not a huge thing, really, but why take it away?

2. All of a sudden, in the latest version of GNOME, you get a silly warning about not logging on as root. Now 
one may dispute the wisdom of working that way, but that is the way I work. I have considered the 
implications and secured things in other ways, let's put it like that; at the end of the day this is MY 
MACHINE and there MY DECISION to make. One of the basic tenets in good software is that you don't impose 
policy of any kind on your users. You provide options, you may provide a selection of preset parameters that 
suggest a sensible policy, but at the end of the day it is up to the owner of the system. That is the way KDE 
does it - by default root is not allowed to log on to the desktop, but there is a parameter. In GNOME I found 
that it is hardcoded into gnome-session. I mean, show some respect for your customers - we have already 
proven that we are intelligent and thinking individuals by chosing Linux over Windows, haven't we?

And so on - these far from the only gripes I have had over GNOME over the years. On their own these two 
wouldn't have made me change, but it all adds up. I think it is important that my tools don't work against 
me; GNOME did, KDE doesn't.


-----Original Message-----
From: gtk-app-devel-list-bounces gnome org on behalf of Thomas Stover
Sent: Wed 14-Jan-09 16:10
To: gtk-app-devel-list gnome org
Subject: qt vs gtk
 
With the recent news that Nokia will be releasing QT under LGPL, I'm 
seeing allot of knee-jerk anti-GTK comments out there. I know I'm 
preaching to the choir on this list, but for the sake of moral I thought 
I would post my 2 cents on the matter.

-I can't think of single QT application I even use. (although I admit I 
don't look for them)

-Without getting into a C vs C++ debate, being able to use GTK straight 
from C really is the whole universe right there. Try returning GUI 
objects from dynamically loadable modules without C. In general, C 
libraries mix together far better than C++ ones. I use GTK together with 
all kinds of stuff. I'm younger and learned C++ in school. I had to 
unlearn the damage. The guys I know that still believe C++ always have 
this mental model that every library needs to be wrapped in some sort of 
all-encompassing toolkit, or you can't use it.

-QT (last time I checked) is not even C++. It's C++ and a custom macro 
language. building ouch. debugging ouch. C++ paradigm ouch.

-HUGE: glib and gtk are separate. glib can be used on it's own. so one 
mental model to work with for gui and non-gui events.

-When you start getting into it, there is just no contest. I love GTK. I 
have no doubt that if I started to read about qt, that I would 
constantly be saying, "oh you can't do that", and "you mean you have to 
that". Long live GTK!


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