Re: [gtk-list] Re: announce: yet another gtk+ C++ wrapper (no caps as Owen suggest)

[Karl Nelson <kenelson ece ucdavis edu>]

I personally side with Laurent on this one.  

> >- it's confusing to the users
> 
> i do not think that gtk+ users will be confused, they are not are babies or
> stupid and can judge what is good and what is garbage :-)

But there will be some confusion especially when it comes to end
users.  Why should there be three shared libraries on system, two of
which are providing wrappers for the same thing?  The question
becomes how different are they. (not just in writing philosophy,
but also in end use.)  I had enough trouble trying to sort through
all the widget sets much or less figure out which wrapper I wanted.

(By the way, which is garbage and why?  Gtk-- seems to work
well for me and you seem to feel VDK is good, so we
aren't talking about something as simple as one being garbage.)

> >- it would be a duplication of a rather heavy effort (keeping Gtk-- up
> > to date with gtk+ is no small task, believe me),

> difficulties are not good reasons to block others possibilities or enterprises,
> GNU manifesto encourages all efforts and is born to deny such mentality,
> only users should made the last sentence :-)
>
Unfortunately, there will then also be a division of effort.  Since
both packages will need to be mantained and there is very little
showing in the C++ department in Gtk already,  (many C++ people
are in the QT camp)  it seems like the pool of available testers,
users, and mantainers is small.  Was this project ever discussed with
the community to see what they needed/wanted?

On the other hand, my limited understanding of VDK is that it
has largely different design goals.  Therefore, we should
certainly not dismiss it.  However, some discussion of its
scope may be needed.  If one or the other projects
expands to eliminate the need of the other, people are
going to be unhappy.  

I saw VDK appear on the Gtk web pages before its announcement here.
I was quite surprised, as there had been any talk of a competing
C++ wrapper before.  And as I help with Gtk--, I would have liked time
to comment earlier.  (Maybe I missed it.)	
   
> >- there does not seem to have any technical reason why the VDK
> >  "goodies" could not be added to Gtk--. I'll certainly look into it
> >  whenever I have the time.
>  >
> you are right, no "technical" ones, simply the will to make Gtk+ easier  and provide 
> more possibilities to the users. I believe that having more than one choice is
> better than having only one.
 
Having more than one choice is only good if the choice is real and
distiguishable.  If the two are largely indistiguishable, it will 
quickly decay to personal preferences, marketing, and non-technical 
reasons.  Eventually one will die and likely the developers will simply
disappear.  I would perfer to avoid competing packages if possible.
So the arguement that two is better would be moot, because in the
end there would be just one.

(I personally have a grudge against gtkgl on the basis of
its overdesign and use of non-portable macros.  Never being
able to contact the author, I chose to support the author
of gtkglarea which had a better(simpler) code base.  I would
have perfered there be only one gtk widget with one C++ warpper.
So if it is possible to keep only one non-competing version, 
it would be a good thing.  There is wasn't possible.)

--Karl