3 ms·

The GUI fckshtry on Linux is exactly "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". Linux spent billions copying windows poorly when it could have spent 1/1000th of that b

The GUI fckshtry on Linux is exactly "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". Linux spent billions copying windows poorly when it could have spent 1/1000th of that being better than Windows by not copying it in the first place.

anthk 2y ago
Gnome never tried to copy Windows except for Bonobo/Corba. KDE OTOH tried to combine every GUI into a single place, making it usable to any user. Mac OS? RiscOS? Be? Die-hard Unix with Motif? KDE1 (and more 2 and 3) allowed that into widgets/window decorations and much more. But I prefer stuff like IceWM+XFE if I had to choose a desktop like environment. No desktop icons, the menu has shortcut entries and a subdir navigator allowing you to open anything with either the file-manager or xdg-open. It has a virtual desktop switcher, a task switcher, a systay and a clock.
talldayo 2y ago
This is what the cathedral versus the bazaar is all about. You either make everyone angry by rejecting common-sense changes because you insist on being different (GNOME) or make everyone angry by accepting every kitchen-sink patch available until your desktop breaks (KDE). I guess people perceive it as fuckshittery because there's no advertising or marketing team to help assuage the missing features. Comparatively, Microsoft Windows struggles to maintain any less than a dozen GUI frameworks despite being a centrally managed product sold by one company. When you look at it that way, it's kinda miraculous that Linux ends up having it's cake and eating it too.
- anthk 2y ago
  The C# UI of the week :D
  - LeFantome 2y ago
    This is both a fair comment and a little misleading at the same time. It is more of a communication problem really. For desktop apps, there has been Windows Forms, WPF, WinRT, UWP, and now WinUI. You could even argue that MAUI is the latest. Sounds like a lot! And it is. That said, it is more of a naming and communication problem than a technology one. Things like Qt and GTK have undergone similar or even worse disruption but it does not seem as bad because of the naming. Take WinUi. It is really the exact same GUI API as UWP. Mostly a namespace change. And UWP was just an attempt to bring the WinRT API to more platforms. The Open Source UNO Project allows you to use WinUI cross-platform. And even in MAUI, it uses WinUI on Windows. Really, the C# GUI API for desktop apps has not changed since 2012 ( Windows 8 ). And the core UI concept is XAML with bindings and MVVM. Those were all introduced with WPF way back in 2006. While WinUI and WPF are not the same API, they are not so different from a dev perspective ( use not architecture ). And of course WPF is still supported. In fact, Windows Forms is not only fully supported but gets updates now and then. Windows Forms was released in 2002. You can start a new app in Visual Studio today on the latest .NET that uses the same GUI framework as an app in 2002! That is actually some pretty damn impressive UI framework stability when you think about it. Now detractors may be screaming. What about Silverlight? Or Xamarin Forms, or Blazor? Or Web Forms? Well, I am not going to make this longer going through web frameworks. I hope we can all agree there has been a lot of churn there on every stack. That said, Web Forms, introduced in 2001 are still supported! ( on .NET Full Framework ). And on mobile, Xamarin Forms is just the old name for MAUI. This also uses XAML, so it has a lot in common with everything from WPF to WinUI. Anyway, I wish it was all better too. But it is not as bad as it seems. Mostly, Microsoft just sucks at naming and messaging.

anthk 2y ago

Gnome never tried to copy Windows except for Bonobo/Corba. KDE OTOH tried to combine every GUI into a single place, making it usable to any user. Mac OS? RiscOS? Be? Die-hard Unix with Motif? KDE1 (and more 2 and 3) allowed that into widgets/window decorations and much more. But I prefer stuff like IceWM+XFE if I had to choose a desktop like environment. No desktop icons, the menu has shortcut entries and a subdir navigator allowing you to open anything with either the file-manager or xdg-open. It has a virtual desktop switcher, a task switcher, a systay and a clock.

talldayo 2y ago

This is what the cathedral versus the bazaar is all about. You either make everyone angry by rejecting common-sense changes because you insist on being different (GNOME) or make everyone angry by accepting every kitchen-sink patch available until your desktop breaks (KDE). I guess people perceive it as fuckshittery because there's no advertising or marketing team to help assuage the missing features. Comparatively, Microsoft Windows struggles to maintain any less than a dozen GUI frameworks despite being a centrally managed product sold by one company. When you look at it that way, it's kinda miraculous that Linux ends up having it's cake and eating it too.

anthk 2y ago
The C# UI of the week :D
- LeFantome 2y ago
  This is both a fair comment and a little misleading at the same time. It is more of a communication problem really. For desktop apps, there has been Windows Forms, WPF, WinRT, UWP, and now WinUI. You could even argue that MAUI is the latest. Sounds like a lot! And it is. That said, it is more of a naming and communication problem than a technology one. Things like Qt and GTK have undergone similar or even worse disruption but it does not seem as bad because of the naming. Take WinUi. It is really the exact same GUI API as UWP. Mostly a namespace change. And UWP was just an attempt to bring the WinRT API to more platforms. The Open Source UNO Project allows you to use WinUI cross-platform. And even in MAUI, it uses WinUI on Windows. Really, the C# GUI API for desktop apps has not changed since 2012 ( Windows 8 ). And the core UI concept is XAML with bindings and MVVM. Those were all introduced with WPF way back in 2006. While WinUI and WPF are not the same API, they are not so different from a dev perspective ( use not architecture ). And of course WPF is still supported. In fact, Windows Forms is not only fully supported but gets updates now and then. Windows Forms was released in 2002. You can start a new app in Visual Studio today on the latest .NET that uses the same GUI framework as an app in 2002! That is actually some pretty damn impressive UI framework stability when you think about it. Now detractors may be screaming. What about Silverlight? Or Xamarin Forms, or Blazor? Or Web Forms? Well, I am not going to make this longer going through web frameworks. I hope we can all agree there has been a lot of churn there on every stack. That said, Web Forms, introduced in 2001 are still supported! ( on .NET Full Framework ). And on mobile, Xamarin Forms is just the old name for MAUI. This also uses XAML, so it has a lot in common with everything from WPF to WinUI. Anyway, I wish it was all better too. But it is not as bad as it seems. Mostly, Microsoft just sucks at naming and messaging.