Re: [gnome-db] Future characteristic

[Vivien Malerba <vmalerba gmail com>]

> 
> I agree, I think that libgnomedb 'must' have a rich
> set of widgets, to use it in forms or as part of an
> application: the improviments in libmeargeant will be
> use full, but I think is more intuitive for the
> developer to have that widgets (I did'nt know that
> improviments already exist in libmeargeant) in
> libgnomedb; any extention 'must' be go back to
> libgnomedb and may the limeargeant use for other
> spacific items.
> 
> I'm wrong? what is the object to have a separated
> library? I allways think that Meargeant was just an
> application to 'use' the libgnomedb.
> 

Yes, mergeant started as an application using libgda and libgnomedb
(only libgda existed when I started it). Then I realized I needed a
data dictionnary and did not want to put that into libgnomedb because
I was not sure how long it would take to have it working and also
because I was not sure everyone wanted it.

So I started my own libmergeant library, which is now useable (I use
it at work to write some simple santdalone apps to manage data in some
databases we have). Libmergeant is using both libgda and libgnomedb
(though not much of libgnomedb).

Beware that libmergeant _requires_ and maintains a data dictionnary to
work which is an expensive job in term of memory usage and startup
times (not that much but still more than without the dictionnary); of
course some improvements could still be brought to it!

The plans have been to merge back libmergeant into libgnomedb at some
point if that pleases everyone. Anyway, for this to happen tho things
are required;
- I need to make some code cleanups in libmergeant
- we need to have a detailled merging plan (I think some libgnomedb's
widgets will need to be replaced by some of libmergeant).

Cheers,

Vivien