As someone who has recently stopped using GNOME, let me give my viewpoint,
then, about why I have stopped using it. It isn't so much knee-jerk, I would
hope, as simple, everyday usefulness. It was not an easy decision for me to
leave and start using KDE - I have used GNOME from the beginning and preferred
it over KDE.
With any tool that provides as much functionality as a desktop, there will
inevitably be a number of irritating issues; this is true for KDE as well. But
I think what really did it for me, in the end, was the trend towards
oversimplification - and what I feel is the complete lack of will to heed any
call for change that I sense from the developers.
In my view nothing would be lost to the GNOME community by not cutting away
features that are actually useful to some users. The default values could still
be set to simple, the parameter file could even be well hidden if need be.
And don't try to tell me that it is beyond the capabilities of the GNOME
developers to make things this way; it wouldn't even make it harder to program
or maintain, on the contrary, parametrising things generally makes it easier in
my experience (25+ years). So it comes down to philosophy, if that is the right
word, or choice - a conscious choice has been made to do it this way despite
what a number of the expert users have had to say. So where is this trend going
to stop? Nobody has been willing to say - in principle it could go all the way
to where we have a system that goes squeek when you push the big plastic flower
and can speak baby babble.
A couple of examples of what I mean - they are not big, overwhelming issues,
but small irritations that I remember because I have found KDE gives me what I
wish in this respect:
1. X used to display a small label containing the position and size of a
window when you moved it. That was one feature I found hugely useful; I usually
have 9 desktops and organise my applications with fixed dimensions and
positions different desktops - like Pidgin on desk 1, thunderbird and firefox
on desk 2, a number of xterms on desk 3 etc, all started from scripts with
positions and dimensions that I have taken from the little dimension label. I
can't do that in GNOME and find the right position and dimension takes a large
amount of trial and error. Not a huge thing, really, but why take it away?
2. All of a sudden, in the latest version of GNOME, you get a silly warning
about not logging on as root. Now one may dispute the wisdom of working that
way, but that is the way I work. I have considered the implications and secured
things in other ways, let's put it like that; at the end of the day this is MY
MACHINE and there MY DECISION to make. One of the basic tenets in good software
is that you don't impose policy of any kind on your users. You provide options,
you may provide a selection of preset parameters that suggest a sensible
policy, but at the end of the day it is up to the owner of the system. That is
the way KDE does it - by default root is not allowed to log on to the desktop,
but there is a parameter. In GNOME I found that it is hardcoded into
gnome-session. I mean, show some respect for your customers - we have already
proven that we are intelligent and thinking individuals by chosing Linux over
Windows, haven't we?
And so on - these far from the only gripes I have had over GNOME over the
years. On their own these two wouldn't have made me change, but it all adds up.
I think it is important that my tools don't work against me; GNOME did, KDE
doesn't.
-Original Message-
From: gtk-app-devel-list-boun...@gnome.org on behalf of Thomas Stover
Sent: Wed 14-Jan-09 16:10
To: gtk-app-devel-list@gnome.org
Subject: qt vs gtk
With the recent news that Nokia will be releasing QT under LGPL, I'm
seeing allot of knee-jerk anti-GTK comments out there. I know I'm
preaching to the choir on this list, but for the sake of moral I thought
I would post my 2 cents on the matter.
-I can't think of single QT application I even use. (although I admit I
don't look for them)
-Without getting into a C vs C++ debate, being able to use GTK straight
from C really is the whole universe right there. Try returning GUI
objects from dynamically loadable modules without C. In general, C
libraries mix together far better than C++ ones. I use GTK together with
all kinds of stuff. I'm younger and learned C++ in school. I had to
unlearn the damage. The guys I know that still believe C++ always have
this mental model that every library needs to be wrapped in some sort of
all-encompassing toolkit, or you can't use it.
-QT (last time I checked) is not even C++. It's C++ and a custom macro
language. building ouch. debugging ouch. C++ paradigm ouch.
-HUGE: glib and gtk are separate. glib can be used on it's own. so one
mental model to work with for gui and non-gui events.
-When you start getting into it, there is just no contest. I love GTK. I
have no