Re: [Vala] Port Tomboy?

["Sam Liddicott" <sam liddicott com>]

* Yu Feng wrote, On 01/07/09 08:38:

On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 14:24 +0200, Jiří Zárevúcky wrote:
  

2009/6/27 Yu Feng <rainwoodman gmail com>:
    

On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 08:03 +0100, Sam Liddicott wrote:
      

     4. Port Tomboy as a show-case project port

        

4 seems to be very fun; how large is the codebase of tomboy?

BTW: What is the largest show-case project driven by VALA, excluding
vala itself? Here I am not limiting within project ported from mono.

      

I'm not sure any "show-case port" is a good idea. The differences and
comparison can be written down in a single document. 

Hi, Jiří, it's not so much what the differences and comparisons are but what work had to be done, what steps were taken, how hard it was and how long it took.

It would not be a show case of converted source, but of the process required to get the port; thus helping potential future porters decide if Vala is a suitable target for porting and help Vala advocates consider if Vala could/should be changed (or tools introduced) to aid porting.

Regardless 
the potential advantages of two directly comparable
project, imagine what would it cause in a larger scale. gnote is
already seen as a "good" counterpart to an "evil" project in the eyes
of almost religionistic mono-haters and it is a denial of Tomboy's
actual achievement. Imagine that someone would copy your original cool
project just because he doesn't like the language. I'm sure it would
make you angry.
    

You are right that this deserves consideration. The issue I tried to raise was one of being technically prepared and I had overlooked to consider any human feelings on the matter.

If some of the Vala community try to make it some kind of
"replacement" to Mono platform (which itself is a stupid idea) the
earlier noted group would immediately make it to be some kind of
"saviour that shall release us from the hands of all evil (Mono,
Microsoft, Novell)". That could possibly result in a complete
alienation of Vala and Mono communities.

Vala must by no means accept any role in the "struggle" (more like a
series of irrational personal insults in my opinion) that is taking
place between the Mono community and those who are not willing to
accept their freedom of choice. It would only hurt the project.
    

I think you are right, and that the Vala project must be kept unconnected from the politics this struggle; but when the women get the bandages and basins of water ready, it is not to join in the fight, but to be prepared for the inevitable outcome.

..

I agree with you. Porting for the porting's sake is nothing but harmful.

Nonetheless I still think if VALA needs bigger, live projects to
increase the level awareness which it deserves. At least among the
open-source vala projects tracked by ohloh, I don't see any of them a
critical application(by critical I mean a real develop team, active
development and large codebase). I don't think this situation is healthy
for the language's eco-system. 

I would like to do a survey/study about the situation. How do you think?
  

Although you were asking Jiří, I think that porting for the sake of finding out how hard porting is would be worthwhile.

Sam