Re: Future of GNOME

[Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis mindspring net>]

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998, Dietmar Maurer wrote:

> I'm a little bit disappointed about gnome. Although many people implement
> programs, it seems that we don't have any new ideas. Most of the initial
> proposals are ignored, and I don't see what makes gnome better than
> other approaches

Initial proposals are taken seriously when they have code to back them up.
People who do not code but who expect their ideas to be taken seriously
are naive.

> (Maybe I'm wrong, but if the only advantage of gnome is that
> GTK is under the GPL, it's easier to rewrite QT (and provide C language
> bindings for QT)).

You are wrong.  I think that our object model is better; we are multi-
lingual; we have much tighter code, from ORBit v MICO on down.

> I think it's time to rethink the gnome design and state more exactly
> what
> gnome should be. The low-level part (gtk, libgnome..) is OK, but many
> other
> things are unclear (UI-Guidelines, software component model, ...).

How about we work on helping you understand where GNOME is going rather
than change direction just because you never seem to have understood
what our design is on these issues?

> Just some example/thoughts:
> 
> gnome-mdi:
> 
> I've written two programs where it's possible to use
> the gnome-mdi interface.

Wonderful!

> But it seems that there is no common acceptance
> on gnome-mdi, although it's in the core libraries.

Nonsense.  It's there and it's not going anywhere.  I have no idea
what you mean by "common acceptance"; as long as our benevolent
dictator accepts it, it doesn't matter whether acceptance is common
or not.

> baboon:
> 
> What's the state of baboon? Will gnome use a software component model?
> (gwp doesn't use corba/baboon).

The use of CORBA was significantly hindered by the lack of a good ORB
to use; that put us about 6 months behind.  Some software still suffers
from a lack of corbafication, and they will continue to do so for a
while, I imagine.  BABOON is coming along very nicely; people will
retrofit their stuff to it when they are comfortable with it.

> panel:
> 
> OK, the panel works, but it provides the same functionality as one
> module of
> my window manager, not much more - features like a drawer are useless
> for most people. And the menus are at least uncommon. I can't see any
> new
> idea.

I agree; I don't think that the panel is very revolutionary.  Nice,
but not earth-shattering.

> scripting language:
> 
> Scheme is a nice language, but most people don't like it (see the amount
> of
> gnome programs written in scheme until now). Tcl/TK would be a much
> better choice because there are so many Tcl/TK programs - and it's very
> easy to learn Tcl/Tk.

Eh?  TK is a widget set, just like GTK.  Ok, not "just like".  TK has
a really dumb event model and an unfortunate requirement that any
programs using TK embed TCL.  And the API changes every year.  And we
already have a very good widget set.

As for TCL, GNOME is multi-lingual.  You should feel free to do TCL
bindings for GNOME functions to your heart's content and put them out
there for others to use.  I know a few people who would love to use
TCL to write GNOME code.

Scheme was never intended to crowd out other scripting languages.

> control-center:
> 
> The control-center uses a new user interface.

No it doesn't; it is almost identical to the system controller in win32.

> This is bad because it's
> uncommon.
> If we want such thing we should make it more general, so that we can use
> it with
> other applications too.

It can be used with other apps; cf. the capplet interface.  As for
being uncommon, I just think that you're wrong.  The interface is very
intuitive.

Of course, if you don't like the implementation, then feel free to write
up a competing one which is better.  Their code is GPL'd, so you can
probably steal 90% of what you need.

> That is only my personal opinion. Other people like/dislike other
> things.
> But if we have a better specification what gnome should be, we can avoid
> doing things twice.

I do not see the problem here.  Maybe you could restate it for me?

--
Todd Graham Lewis            32°49'N,83°36'W          (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux******         MindSpring Enterprises      tlewis@mindspring.net