[gtkmm] Questions and information

[Dean Kutryk <trollking shaw ca>]

I just finished asking Bjarne Stroustrup about an IDE for Standard C++
development, and he said that he needs a GUI library much more than an
IDE. Well, isn't that what Gtkmm is all about? It's a Widget Toolkit for
developing Standard C++ applications with a graphical user interface.

I mentioned to Mr. Stroustrup that just as Standard C++ is associated
with quality software (to which he agreed), open source development is
associated with decentralized control. What I mean is that open source
work should strive for an organic structure, while a vendor wants a
centralized architecture so that they can control the libraries, than
maintain and repackage them for sale every few years. What I believe is
that a user can only rent libraries from a vendor, however on the other
hand, with open source the user owns the libraries. However current open
source architecture is not as organic as it should be and is actually
all founded upon than evolved from the constraints of a vendor (action
based) architectural design.

Mr. Stroustrup said that "most organizations - i.e. most of the people
who finance the industry - prefer to see code with a clearly identified
maintainer who can be trusted to be around in another decade."

So what I'm wondering about is the future of Gtkmm. What are your
thoughts on making further investments into the project. I'd like to see
an IDE as well as rich literature built into the development
environment. Maybe a book or two published through Oreilly or
Addison-Wesley. Is this possible? Can we build some quality software
using Standard C++ and Gtkmm.