Re: official support for more scripting languages in gnome needed

[Skip Montanaro <skip pobox com>]

    Dominic> I'm annoyed at RedHat that I can't install a working system
    Dominic> without python.  The same goes for Debian and Perl.  

I'm not sure how either of these organizations is supposed to support a rich
set of system admin tools without requiring some scripting language.  I'm
sure there are many people out there who can attest to the programmer
productivity gains to be had using any of a number of scripting languages.
Abandoning them for C or C++ would make it much more difficult for these
companies to create the powerful tools one comes to expect in a professional
distribution.

    Dominic> I'm extremely annoyed that the default gnome workstation redhat
    Dominic> install is >700Mb.  Why do I need 5 mail clients and 5 web
    Dominic> browsers *by default*.  If I want them, I'll install them.

The issue of how many of a particular class of applications to install is
completely separate from the issue of requirements for this or the other
scripting language.  I suspect it's quite possible that the systems can be
improved to at least classify an installation more accurately (e.g. server
vs. desktop vs. custom) and to allow you to pick and choose among variants
within certain application classes (web browser, email, newsreader, etc).  

My biggest wish is that I could avoid installing much of the fruits of
internationalization.  While I appreciate the effort that goes into such
work, I don't really need Czech, Hungarian, French, Portuguese, and Polish
versions of everything.

    Dominic> For linux, I had to install the core system then remove the
    Dominic> programs I didn't want, only to find that I couldn't uninstall
    Dominic> many because of rediculous dependencies.

If you feed back your complaints to RH, Debian, SuSE or other Linux
packaging houses, I suspect they will look at the issue of specific
dependencies.  In some instances there may have been packaging mistakes made
when an RPM was produced.  In other instances perhaps a tool can be packaged
differently to give you some options about installation.

    Dominic> Keep the core as lean as possible, then let users decide what
    Dominic> programs they will want to use, then everyone will be happier.

That, unfortunately, works against the notion of making Linux more widely
accessible to the unwashed masses.  They will generally want one-click
installations (oops, did I just violate some Amazon copyright?)...

Finally, I just popped on over to warehouse.com.  It's kinda tough to get
terribly worried about Linux or Windows installation size when you can buy a
Seagate Barracuda 20GB Ultra ATA hard drive for $114.95...  That 700Mb
you're worried about only takes up 3% of such a disk.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip pobox com)
(847)971-7098