Re: official support for more scripting languages in gnome needed

[Vlad Harchev <hvv hippo ru>]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Ben Ford wrote:

> >
> > > I don't know.  I don't run those apps.  Actually, I take that back.  I tried sawfish
> > > and not only was it a total bitch to compile, but it was slower than hell. It actually
> > > took about two seconds for the window titlebar menu to pop down on a PII450 w/ 192
> > > RAM.  Totally unacceptable.
> >
> >  As for sawfish - that delay was due to the way the *window menu* was coded
> > (elegance of code and generic approach rather than speed of execution). That
> > delay happens only 1st time since sawfish startup when you pop up window menu
> > (and it's caused by the fact that not all modules were loaded yet (lazy
> > loading) - so 2 secons are needed to load all modules on which 'menu' module
> > depends).  On subsequent times, the menu pops up almost immediately.
> >  As for compiling - you didn't have to compile it yourself..
> >
> 
> No, this was 2 seconds *each* time. (3 seconds the first time.)  As for compiling, as you

 Hmm, perhaps it was a very old version of sawfish.. Just tried 0.36 on RH60
on PII-800/128Mb and menu popups immediately on the 2nd+ time.

> can guess, I like to have control over my own box.  However, the
> particular installation of Sawfish I was referring to was actually the
> second time I tried it.  This time on a stock RH box with pre-compiled
> RPMs.  And hey, *somebody* has to compile these things!  You don't have to
> make their life harder!

 They are paid for it and/or they have adequate expertise and qualification
for doing such thing. Programmers shouldn't limit flexibility, feature set and
amount of code sharing of their programs in order Joe user would have less
troubles compiling their software. As for me - I had no problems at all
compiling and installing sawfish-0.36.

> >
> > > > <snip>
> >
> > >
> > > Regardless of whether we agree on languages, you cannot impose this on me.  As I have
> > > said repeatedly, if you force me to run perl and python, when I don't wish to, I will
> > > go elsewhere.  I reserve the right to choose feature-rich vs. lean and fast.
> >
> >  Yes, it's of course your right what to use.
> >
> >
> 
> Thank you.  But that's not what you originally said, and that is what I was replying to.
> Not to the issue of encouraging scripting laguages, but to the fact that you stated that
> you wanted to make it a requirement.

 I meant that new utilities (probably core ones) like intelligent floppy disk
formatter or user listing will require python (or any other scripting
language) and you'll be unable to run it without python installed. The point
is how much important utilities are allowed to be written in scripting
langauges provided that some users refuse to install those scripting
languages. gnome-libs itself of course shouldn't be rewritten in Python of
course - so you will be able to use any C-based gnome utilities. I think gnome
should use tools/languages that are most perfect from technical POV in most
important aspects rather than taking care/fighting for the hears of the users
who think they have a clue to decide what they need to install or what they
don't need (i.e. technical decisions should be made by technical people).

 
> -b
> 

 Best regards,
  -Vlad