Thanks for the clarification. >>> I think that more attention should be put in the memory footprint. I have >>> the impression that LyX is becoming a bloatware. >> >> How so? Are you referring to just the memory imprint or the feature set as >> well? (Bloatware means many things to different people.) > > More or less, I mean what wikipedia [1] has to say on the subject: > > Software bloat is a term used to describe the tendency of newer computer > programs to have a larger installation footprint, or have many unnecessary > features that are not used by end users, or just generally use more system > resources than necessary, while offering little or no benefit to its users.
Unfortunately, software bloat is a difficult thing to gauge. Rather than become "top heavy," I feel like LyX is just starting to arrive into its own as a program. It has a number of very interesting features -- XHTML support, branches, VCS integration, etc. -- that make it stand apart from all other programs on the market. I've started talking to a couple of publishing people I know about it, and they're really starting to get excited. What seems to be stoking that excitement are the features "not used by end users." My experience with "weight management" in other projects has not been positive. In a lot of ways, I consider it to be a disease. In an effort to make things better, efforts often make things worse by removing key features and dumbing down others. But I'm all for helping to reduce the memory footprint and optimizing code, but I think we should think carefully before removing existing features. I would be all for refining the design of dialogs and the overall work window. We might also consider reaching out to the design communities of one of the Linux projects and see if they would be wiling to offer help in that effort. Cheers, Rob
