Re: Usage of GTK+ headers

[Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

2005/10/13, Mikael Hallendal <micke imendio com>:
> Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> > I meant things that matter.
> >
> > (compile time is not a signifcant metric for software quality in my book)
>
> What do you mean?

I mean I care about things visible to the user, not the developer
(alhough I *am* making stuff for the developer...).

> By including only the headers you need can substantially affect the time
> you spend waiting for compilation, especially in a large application
> such as Evolution.

Users won't be waiting for compilation to finish. They won't be
compiling (at least I hope not). Developers will, but unless you are
developing the actual software, it should be a infrequent one-time
action. And if you are developing the actual software, you will be
compiling only the modifications, which means it won't take too long
anyway so the gain is smaller.

> That time can of course be used to improve you application so, in a way
> it can effect the quality of a code but not necessary.

If indeed compiling from scratch all the time, sure, it can take a
while to compile. But I just don't think it is significant enough to
actually make a difference. I say this when developing on a mobile
Celeron @700MHz and little over 300 megs of RAM and a sluggish
harddisk, so it *MUST* be ok for other devs too ;)

If your application takes forever to compile, it could be that it's
not the compilers fault... ];-)

> So I would say that's a good reason for not doing it.

I calculate that it takes more time to figure out what header provides
this and that every time you decide to add a feature which will need a
header not included yet than to just use the toplevels and face the
compilation time penalty.

But I guess it comes down to ways of developing and other matters of
taste (which are less than useful subjects for discussion, unless
having a beer while at it).

--
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi
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