On 10/21/18 1:13 PM, Russel Winder wrote:
On Sun, 2018-10-21 at 04:15 -0400, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via
Digitalmars-d wrote:
[…]
That's pure nonsense: It's Linux - unless one option actually goes
away
(KDE is still actively used and developed), then there's no such
thing
as one "winning" over the other.
Hardly nonsense. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora all prefer GNOME over KDE, so
GTK+ over Qt.
First of all, minor nitpick: Unless some bombshell news occurred that I
managed to miss, Ubuntu pushes their own Unity, NOT Gnome. Yes, that's
still GTK, but still...accuracy...FWIW.
But more importantly, "prefer" is vague a weasel word in this situation.
The claim is that the distros "prefer" GTK over Qt. The *reality* is far
more simple: The installers for the distros give you a choice between
Gnome, KDE and (on Ubuntu) Unity, and Gnome/Unity just happen to often
be the default. That's the *only* thing that "prefer" means in this
context, so let's call a spade a spade: It's a common installer default.
That's all.
Furthermore, regardless of what distro you've installed, KDE can always
be installed and used. And (unless things have changes since last I
looked) every single one of the distros you mention maintain the full
set of KDE packages in their repositories.
So yes, saying that GTK "won" over Qt is hyperbolic nonsense. Does it
have a slight dominance WRT Linux DE's? Yes. Unfortunately. But that's
like claiming a victor between iOS and Android: BOTH still have
significant user-bases. BOTH are still actively developed with no end
even remotely in sight. BOTH are still relevant and will remain so for
the foreseeable future. So long as they both coexist (and the GNU/Linux
ecosystem actively promotes coexistence of competitors - which it does),
any claim of a victor, or of one competitor "winning" over another, IS,
yes, hyperbolic nonsense.
Plus, as others have said, industry tends to take Qt more seriously than
GTK anyway. So once again, hyperbolic nonsense to claim GTK "won".
People coming from Windows or macOS are genreally unaware of the notion
of choice when it comes to UI. That Linux provides a choice is clearly
alien to them. That I have chosen GNOME over KDE is a personal choice,
but I like having the choice: I like that others can choose KDE or
Cinnamon or whatever.
I believe this is pretty much exactly my own point, too ;) Ie,
regardless of the Win/Mac crowds unfortunate misconceptions, Linux is
about choice, not about one option "winning" over another. Thus, for one
competitor to defeat another in Linux, the loser would have to either
cease to exist, or become extremely marginalized. Note that "extremely
marginalized" is a far, far stronger notion than "not majority" or "not
the default of the options given by the installer".
[…]
Programmers writing GUI apps often like GTK. Nobody else does. From
a
programmer standpoint, it may very well be nice. But that's
irrelevant,
because from the user standpoint, GTK is, and has always been, a
steaming pool of diarrhea, even if you ARE using GNOME/Unity.
GTK+ is fine and dandy. That you do not like it is your choice, and
that is fine.
Ditto for Qt. Which again, is a key part of my point.
But that said, out of all the people I've come across who use a
GTK-based DE (ie, Gnome or Unity), very few of them, if any, do so
because they like GTK apps better than Qt apps (Or the GTK-file chooser
over the Qt file-chooser ;)). The vast majority of the time, it's simply
because they *don't object* to Gnome/Unity and merely go along with it -
*not* because they consider it superior to KDE, nor because they prefer
GTK apps to Qt apps.
For that matter, out of those people I've come across who DO have a
significant preference regarding "GTK app" vs "Qt app", the vast
majority of people who actually care are on the "Qt UI" side. Out of the
minority who prefer GTK apps, the majority are GTK or Gnome developers
themselves. (BTW, Note, in ALL of this, I'm referring to GTK/Qt UI, not
GTK/Qt API. Just to clarify.) On top of that, it's no secret that GNOME
3 triggered an exodus of GNOME developers, and for very well-known
reasons. But there's no such equivalent for KDE.
I have no doubt there *are* people out there who do consider
GTK/Gnome/Unity superior to KDE/Qt, and Ihave no intention to claim that
they are "wrong". But in my experience, such people account for a vast
*minority* of GTK/Gnome/Unity users.
Ultimately, everything points to the same thing: Those who actually CARE
about GTK/Gnome/Unity vs Qt/KDE, typically prefer Qt/KDE. The rest are
just swing votes.
As for the distros choice of "which do we make default?", that's really
no surprise and implies nothing significant: The tech industry's current
runway-fashion wind direction is clearly "The user should adapt to the
software", not the other way around. Thus fully explains GTK/GNOME/Unity
as the gatekeepers' current suggestions. Just like Win/Mac: "Actual user
opinions: not relevant."
