Re: so, is this claim about pango still true? or does nobody actually care?

[Russell Shaw <rjshaw netspace net au>]

andrew openldev org wrote:
> > is this still true? does anybody care? is there a way to avoid pango
> > entirely and still get AA fonts inside GTK2? will this ever be fixed
> > before everyone is using h/w acceleration to print button labels?
> >
> > the issue raised here will *kill* ardour dead, and would force us to
> > also have to abandon GTK for Qt (a move I would really, really not want
> > to make). some clarification would help ....
>
>
> Everyone has something to complain about. Yes, Gtk+ 2.x is much slower
> than Gtk+ 1.x, but you also have to take into consideration two things.
>
> First, there are a ton of new features in 2.x that are very useful such as new
> widgets. Second, computers are a lot faster now. Look at what he is saying:
> 40%-60% of a 1.2 GHz processor. Well, first of all, that is a very slow processor,
> but I don't think that is constant.
>
> I am running an Athlon 2500+ and a Sempron 2800+ in my laptop and have
> never seen any problems with the speed of Gtk+ that were significant. Of
> course there is always room for improvement, but from what I have been 
> seeing in discussions across the net, there is a big focus on making Gtk+
> more efficient.
>
> Lastly, I would like to say one thing. Gtk+ 1.x may be faster, but I refuse to
> use any applications that still use it. Compared to Gtk+ 2.x applications, they
> look horrible. I can't stand it because, yes they may be using X fonts which
> are faster, but it also has the blocky/amateur look that comes with that.
>
> In conclusion, if speed is a concern, I would recommend just maintaining
> both the Gtk+ 1.x & 2.x trees because your team has already put a lot of
> work into both. On the other hand, if you realize that most people are
> running machines capable of handling a larger library, 2.x is very worth
> using. (Don't use Qt. You will alienate every Gnome user because Qt looks
> terrible on Gnome. Take this from someone that cannot even look at KDE
> because it tears me apart. It's an aesthetic thing...)
>
> I hope this helps. And just to note, I'm not trying to start a flame about
> Gnome vs. KDE ... to each his own even though this is the Gtk list...

I don't care how much tedious rendering pango does; if a gui isn't
lightning fast on a 100MHz pentium (or 25MHz 386 for that matter),
it's fundamentally broken in either or both design and implementation.