On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 12:20:20AM +0200, Tuomo Valkonen wrote: > On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 09:30:05PM +0000, Tom Payne wrote: > > to the authors). I would much rather see Ion written either in C++ or C with > > the glib/gtk object system. > > gobject... *puke*. That is the most awful object kludge I have ever come > across. It's too complicated, overdesigned and bloated monstrosity for a > non-OO language.
It's certainly a mess, and what you invariably end up with when you write OO programs without language support. I guess my reason for suggesting it was that although it's OOP stuffed into a C-shaped box it is stable, debugged, and understood by people other than Tuomo! > All the g* libraries have gone way beyond that line a long time ago and > Ion isn't too far either. Yes. Which is why admitting defeat and moving to gtk might be a good idea. Many of the problems that Tuomo and others are solving in ion have already been solved in other more mature pieces of software. For example: * module support has been in glib for ages. It already supports loads of different platforms -- no more CF_UNDERSCORED_MODULE_SYMBOLS hacks. * ion's static linking is just like ltdl's preload mechanism. * unicode support has been in glib for ages. * anti-aliased font support in gdk for ages. I'm sure Qt does this as well, I just happen to have done a couple of projects using gtk and so am more familiar with it. My point is all these things are: available now debugged platform independent are free and begging to be used By building on these libraries (Qt offers all of the above as well) rather than reinventing the wheel Tuomo and others can concentrate on making Ion great rather than chasing minutae. It's 2003 for crying out loud! Surely we don't STILL have to create our own linked list and string libraries?! As of version 2.2.0 gtk provides support for window manager-level applications (look in the docs at http://www.gtk.org/). I'm sure people will counter with "dependencies are bad". Well, maybe. Ion already depends on X, Xext, Xinerama, Xft, iconv, and utf8. Surely it's better to have a single dependency on gtk/Qt? > Fortunately I don't have to choose. And what's the point in using a > WIMP-toolkit with an anti-WIMP-is-the-only-way-and-everyone-should- > conform-to-it WM anyway? In my opinion all programs should be written in > as presentation-agnostic way as possible. There's nothing in these toolkits that says you must create WIMP interfaces with them. Just use the drawing layer (gdk), a few widgets (GtkEntry rather than ion's wedln), and you're all set. gkrellm is an example app that uses gtk but has its own style of window. Regards, Tom
