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Before I got into programming as a teenager, GIMP was one of the first "advanced" pieces of software I really dove into. I learned so much just messing around,

Before I got into programming as a teenager, GIMP was one of the first "advanced" pieces of software I really dove into. I learned so much just messing around, creating wallpapers, editing screenshots from games, making photo-manipulation "art", logos for imaginary companies (and later even a few real ones). I am so grateful such a wonderful, free, open source piece of software existed for me to play with, I think it's part of what sparked my interest in computing.

Helloworldboy 6y ago
I had basically this exact experience with GIMP, truly life-changing software for me.
abacadaba 6y ago
Automating some tedious tasks to generate 1000's of image sets with python-fu was one of the things that made me love programming. Also was my introduction to lisp when i tried first with script-fu, but that was mostly incomprehensible to me since im dum.
- justwalt 6y ago
  In a similar vein, the thing that got me to try Linux when my previous computing/programming experience was VBScript in high school and Matlab in my ChemE degree, was a bash one liner that renamed and organized by date some photographs that a group of many friends had taken from a vacation trip. I thought it was incredible that that kind of power was available a terminal away, and also a first class feature.
jhoechtl 6y ago
Gimp has fallen far behind of what is an advanced software. The GUI is atrocious and it's still using GTK2 which is blurry on my scaled screen. And as it seems there is no way out anytime soon. It was advanded - 10 years ago.
- jimmaswell 6y ago
  The GUI is perfectly fine. I use it all the time and it does everything I need. Sometimes I have to look up how to do something but that's true of any program. What exactly is it missing?
  - murermader 6y ago
    I think his point was more about the GUI technology, instead of the GUI layout. The GUI does not behave very well on HiDPI screens with scaling.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      I do not really understand the problem here. Why do you need to scale instead of using a larger font?
      - philtar 6y ago
        "Why do you need to X?" This is what I sounded like when I was trying to convince my non-nerd friends that they should use Linux on their laptops. People have different requirements. If a modern interface that isn't blurry on modern screens is one of those requirements, then so be it. Convincing them that their requirement is wrong isn't going to fix GIMP
- dTal 6y ago
  GTK2 doesn't "scale" at all, so whatever is making it blurry on your computer isn't that. Probably you've got a desktop that's trying too hard to scale things. I hate blurriness so I turn all "scaling" off and just set my screen DPI to its real physical value (Xorg, criminally, lies to apps and says it's 96 by default - I force it in .xinitrc with xrandr). DPI-aware apps Just Work, and if it uses raw pixels, it just looks small. I believe for GTK2 you can load a pre-scaled theme, which will solve the too-small thing. Scaling is evil. DPI is the one true king.
  - reirob 6y ago

Helloworldboy 6y ago

I had basically this exact experience with GIMP, truly life-changing software for me.

abacadaba 6y ago

Automating some tedious tasks to generate 1000's of image sets with python-fu was one of the things that made me love programming. Also was my introduction to lisp when i tried first with script-fu, but that was mostly incomprehensible to me since im dum.

justwalt 6y ago
In a similar vein, the thing that got me to try Linux when my previous computing/programming experience was VBScript in high school and Matlab in my ChemE degree, was a bash one liner that renamed and organized by date some photographs that a group of many friends had taken from a vacation trip. I thought it was incredible that that kind of power was available a terminal away, and also a first class feature.

jhoechtl 6y ago

Gimp has fallen far behind of what is an advanced software. The GUI is atrocious and it's still using GTK2 which is blurry on my scaled screen. And as it seems there is no way out anytime soon. It was advanded - 10 years ago.

jimmaswell 6y ago
The GUI is perfectly fine. I use it all the time and it does everything I need. Sometimes I have to look up how to do something but that's true of any program. What exactly is it missing?
- murermader 6y ago
  I think his point was more about the GUI technology, instead of the GUI layout. The GUI does not behave very well on HiDPI screens with scaling.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    I do not really understand the problem here. Why do you need to scale instead of using a larger font?
    - philtar 6y ago
      "Why do you need to X?" This is what I sounded like when I was trying to convince my non-nerd friends that they should use Linux on their laptops. People have different requirements. If a modern interface that isn't blurry on modern screens is one of those requirements, then so be it. Convincing them that their requirement is wrong isn't going to fix GIMP
dTal 6y ago
GTK2 doesn't "scale" at all, so whatever is making it blurry on your computer isn't that. Probably you've got a desktop that's trying too hard to scale things. I hate blurriness so I turn all "scaling" off and just set my screen DPI to its real physical value (Xorg, criminally, lies to apps and says it's 96 by default - I force it in .xinitrc with xrandr). DPI-aware apps Just Work, and if it uses raw pixels, it just looks small. I believe for GTK2 you can load a pre-scaled theme, which will solve the too-small thing. Scaling is evil. DPI is the one true king.
- reirob 6y ago