Re: thoughts on gtk, after Hexsweeper

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 08:33:48PM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> Liam Quin <liam holoweb net> writes:
> > I wrote up some of my expreience at:
> > http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/gnome/hexsweeper/experiences.html
> 
> Many of these are GNOME things not GTK+ things
Yes, they are.

>  - I don't quite understand what you want from your aligned layout
>    that GtkTable doesn't provide. 

GtkTable does provide what I needed, except that I can't get
text alignment on the baseline between columns.

The complaint -- it's more an observation than a complaint --
is that I have to go through more trouble than I like to do something
that I'd like to be "default behaviour".

>    Glade does need some easier ways of doing common layout operations;
>    using glade without knowing how GTK+ geometry management works
>    is rather mystifying; it would be nice if Glade could help
>    teach you how it worked.
I agree with that too.

>  - gnome-hello in CVS should have what you want for a template
>    script.
When I started, I didn't know about it, and also gnome.cvs.org
was down anyway that weekend :-)

>    Make sure that you are using automake not just
>    autoconf, or you will indeed have lots of problems.
erm, how to tell?

>  - The #defines for string arguments have been suggested before.
>    Its more extra typing beyond what GTK+ already requires,
>    but yes, it would have some advantages.
OK :)

>    In my experience, the runtime errors aren't really a big problem
>    because signal connections and argument settings almost always
>    occur on the common codepath, and not on a rarely hit codepath.
true, but I am paranoid :-)

>  - The double casting problem is a bit of a gotcha, but I think the
>    macros you propose are rather confusing and probably obscure
>    what is going on to much to make it a good idea.
yes, I agree I think.  It was an attempt to suggest a radical
alternative, sometimes doing that makes people sit up and think :-)

>  - Screenshots in the API docs would be nice, but a lot of work. Maybe
>    once we redo the default theme
I agree on both counts.  Heck, I'll even help :-)

> And of course, the number 1 tip for GTK+ programming is:
> 
>  - Don't use C; In my opinion, C is a library programming language
>    not an app programming language.
heh

If I was going to use C++ I would probably be using Qt :-)

Lee / Ankh


-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam holoweb net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999