Re: [gtk-list] [OFFTOPIC] Re: Proposed widget

[KC5TJA <kc5tja topaz axisinternet com>]

> Every serious OS needs memory protection. People (most people I know of) run
> (ran) an Amiga (with AmigaOS) for games - The important stuff runs (should
> run) on something more suitable for it (e.g. Un*x). Your opinion may differ.

I sure as hell don't use AmigaOS for games.  Just because every other OS
you've used has memory protection doesn't make it "necessary to run
serious software."  Quite the contrary.  Memory protection is NEVER used
when running well-written applications (unless you're working with paged
virtual memory, but there are other ways around that as well).  If the
memory protection system needs to kick in, then something is wrong with
the program you're running.  It should never have been sold in the first
place. 

> Then why would you want to have an OS kernel of > 300-500KB just for running
> e.g. awk (135KB here)? Weak argument. 

Precisely the reason I'm writing Dolphin.

> Somehow new widgets must be collected and brought to the programmers,
> otherwise everyone has to implement her/his GtkAnyWidget for her/himself

Use dynamic libraries that are loaded only when necessary.  That's what
gadtools.library is.

> (useless duplication of work), every program will have the code for
> GtkAnyWidget in the app's code (instead of in the shared lib) and if I run all
> of the simultaneously it is _my_ RAM that's consumed by all those
> implementations of GtkAnyWidget. And you have the nerve to call this clever?

What?  Where did I say that?  I don't recall saying that.  I distinctly
said that I have "no problems with GTK being 1MB, with dynamically loading
extensions to it on an as-needed basis.  But GTK should never be so large
as to be all-encompassing everything for everybody in all situations.
That would be a Microsoft-way of thinking."  (Paraphrased, of course)  And
I *DO* have the original quote for that.  :-)

> If a widget is of general interest (show me one that isn't) it should be
> shipped with gtk - whether in libgtk or libgtkwidgets isn't interesting (to

Precisely.  Make the widget's code available, but NOT in libgtk.so, unless
it's imperative to GTK's operation.  5MB of binaries roughly translates to
at least 10 to 20MB of source code, on average.  Would you want to
maintain that?  And think of the side effects changing a source file
-could- have.  I've been a developer for over 10 years, and I've seen many
cases where person A updates his files, no problem.  Person B updates his
files, no problem.  Person C updates his files.  Now all of a sudden the
whole thing doesn't work, because of some unexpected side effect.  Now
person C, B, or A needs to rework all of their code to work with C's
changes, or C needs to undo his work (thus hindering progress).  I've seen
it happen in the Linux community too.

Keeping the widget libraries physically separated helps in debugging such
things.

> me) - the code for every widget in the lib and therefore one time on the disk,
> code of not used widgets will happily get paged into swapspace - what's the
> problem?

Big software tends to be slower than small software, as perceived by the
user.  I am a speed freak.  My computer needs to run as fast as possible,
whenever possible.  I just don't want Linux to become like Windows. 

==========================================================================
      KC5TJA/6     |                  -| TEAM DOLPHIN |-
        DM13       |                  Samuel A. Falvo II
    QRP-L #1447    |          http://www.dolphin.openprojects.net