Re: GtkApplication and argc/arv

[Tristan Van Berkom <tristanvb openismus com>]

On Thu, 2011-02-24 at 13:11 +0800, Wen-Yen Chuang wrote:
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> On 02/24/11 08:41, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> > As far as I know, GtkApplication depends on GIO, which
> > should have some extension points for services on different
> > operating systems... using dbus on linux (not exactly sure
> > how this works currently in GIO but that's what I suspect
> > is going on).
> 
> If GtkApplication can use socket or other non-dbus IPC on linux,
> I have nothing against it.
> 
> However, I failed to find options/conffiles/environment variables to
> use GtkApplication without dbus on linux. :-(
> 

Why do you care what GTK+ uses if you dont have to deal with the
dbus apis yourself anyway ?

Or are you putting together a distro for your embedded device
with limited resources and want to run many GTK+ applications
and use gsettings etc without using dbus for some performance
reason ?

afaik, dbus is the desktops "IPC future", sounds like a better
idea to send patches and improve it than to just hate it.

> > Not sure here either... on the one hand, many apps do not need
> > to be single instance... and on the other hand... for apps that do not
> > really need to be single instance apps; it does not hurt if they are
> > implemented as single instance apps.
> 
> It do not hurt, but is not convenient sometimes.
> 
> a.) Testing newly-built/new version of libraries and applications
> 
> b.) Running multiple versions of the same application
> 	For example, running firefox 3.5, 3.6, and 4.0 at the same time.

Hmmm a & b are kind of the same, either way they are not important
for end users that receive stable software that works (but I 
guess that if GtkApplication does not have a --start-me-up-separately
command line argument already, adding one will still make sense for
this).

> c.) For stability
> 	Crash of one process will not affect other processes.

Eh, ok... I don't really agree but the fact is you might sell
that to a manager somewhere who wants to ship his unstable software
early and say "it doesnt crash" at least most of the time, or
"when it crashes" only one window crashes "so its ok to sell it
to users".

> 
> There are many other reasons to not use single instance.

I think it would be constructive for you to list them here.

> If GtkApplication can not turn off single instance,
> I will not use it when I do not need single instance.

*if* GtkApplication does not yet support a command line
option for starting up a separate instance.... for testing
purposes or whatever... I'm sure someone (someone like you)
will add that command line option in the form of a patch.

I'm also quite sure that if that patch does not break
anything it will be accepted and applied 

(for instance many people use gedit and test new versions 
of gedit simultaneously, so you want to be sure when running
a relocated build in a prefix it doesnt just communicate
with the already running gedit and give you a new window
every time you test something).

Remember, GTK+ is a community project and it only improves
when people like you, who have nitpicks and find problems
with the api _actually take the time to improve it_.

Cheers,
         -Tristan