Re: [gtkmm] Talk about a major rewrite

[Paul Davis <pbd op net>]

i apologize ahead of time for the deeply sarcastic tone of my reply. i
just hate it when someone who hasn't been around here before shows up
and suggests that someone (else) rewrites everything they've done. my
manners below are not good, but they're better than showing up at
someone's party and saying "your work sucks!".

>- Some other interfaces are clearly written, but they don't have the gtk+ 
>completeness.

some specific examples? AFAIK. gtkmm2 is basically complete.

>- Gtkmm wraps around C functions. That is bad for performance.

have you measured this? do you actually know what you're talking about?

>- Some gtk+ functions are buggy. Gtkmm inherits the bugs.

so? go talk to the GTK+ people. gtkmm represents the decision by many
to use GTK+. they just prefer to use it with C++ idioms. its not meant
to be a C++ implementation, just as the python, java, guile, perl and
other wrappers are not. it provides the C++ programmer with a
comfortable way to use GTK+. nothing more (or less).

>- If gtk+ changes, gtkmm has to change, too (most of the times).

so? if anything changes, something changes. what's your point?

>- Gtk+ tries to implement an object model in palin C. Gtkmm wraps around 
>that. This is a mess.

agreed. not that much of mess, though.

>- The gtk+ object model is still a good framework and design to start with, 
>in a purely C++ environment.

why? as in "why bother?"

>- What bothered me is the way gtkmm tries to track data losses and 
>references. If gtk+ handles it wrong, gtkmm can't help and that is a deadend.

i have tens of thousands of lines of gtk/gtkmm code. this doesn't
happen unless me, and it won't happen to you, the programmer, unless
you make a mistake. another alternative is a bug in gtk+ but these
seem pretty rare in the object management category. 

>- IMHO this mess I describe is the reason gtkmm is not very popular. Qt is 
>and shows some path to follow.

aha. you definitely don't know what you're talking about.

>- I could (thoretically) write that thing myself and let you go on with 
>gtkmm. It wouldn't be fair, however, if my work made yours obsolete.

how ambitious. how conceited.

>It's Summer and I'm taking my holidays. You can think of my suggestion and 
>talk about it. All I wait for now is your comments (the core team 
>preferably). As from September we could talk about the real implementation. 

tell you what: why don't wait till your holidays are done, then
continue doing what you normally do. the gtkmm team will keep doing
what they do, and people will continue to be about as happy as they
are right now.

--p