4 ms·

There is a lot about GTK I like; it's a C library making compatibility easier[1], it always seemed way faster (less memory bloat?) than QT, and while the widget

by pdkl95 12y ago

There is a lot about GTK I like; it's a C library making compatibility easier[1], it always seemed way faster (less memory bloat?) than QT, and while the widget-packing/nesting style was somewhat ugly, I found it surprisingly easy to write. I was even enjoying Vala. While it was obviously a young language, it had a lot of interesting ideas. Then we got the new 3.x version of GTK with its "lets rewrite everything for no other reason than to break compatibility"[2] project goal that seems to have corrupted far too many projects recently. In addition to the problems already mentioned in this thread, it seemed so.. unfinished. Various components or features were gone or rewritten into something else. I guess they spent all their development time trying to tie Gnome and in as tightly as possible instead of finishing features. The last straw was when they decided to join Pottering's "lets forget Unix and make Linux into Windows" crusade. A terrible design decision on top of years of other questionable choices and bad attitude about actually listening to user needs. I supported GTK and Gnome waaaaay back when they first started, when the fight was between a Free (GPL) library and the increasingly popular proprietary-license-only[3] Qt. Now, I'm not sure what to support in the GUI toolkit area. While I figure that out, my current project's GUI is being written in ruby-tk. The widgets in Tk have a terrible look and strange layout/interaction quirks, but at least it isn't a moving target and work more or less everywhere. [1] e.g.: writing Ruby bindings C++ libraries can be problematic. While problems such as the name-mangled symbols are not as bad as they once were, it is still much easier to link a C library into a random environment. [2] As Linus said, "...thou shalt not break working code." [3] Trolltech changed the license about a year (?) afterwords.

dviola 12y ago
You mean Qt?
currysausage 12y ago
> The last straw was when they decided to join Pottering's "lets forget Unix and make Linux into Windows" crusade. Could you give a little more background about this? (True curiosity, I don't doubt that what you say is true!)
- pdkl95 12y ago
  This is going off topic, but because you asked: Yes, there's a bit of hyperbole in that statement, but there is a problem there. Pottering has pushed a very "our way and no other" attitude, even when other people have requirements that aren't met by systemd. Worse, the tight-coupling between components is a perfect example of the "embrace and extend" tactic. The monopoly position systemd currently enjoys has successfully been used to extend into a disturbing number of other components[1]. As for unix-vs-windows - switching to a windows-style binary log and rewriting an inetd into a mandatory "SvcHost.exe" for linux is bad enough, but the real issues is the removing of well-defined barriers between components. Pottering's hatred scripts is a problem, because using scripts as the "glue" in unix is one of the most important features of unix. Keeping many of the the interactions between components in an open and readable format has forced developers to create (and deal with) methods of API that can actually be extended beyond the original project. Systemd returns to the windows style of just making function calls into the current implementation. Being forced to, for example, listen on a unix socket for a command works easily with anything, even into the future. Requiring that same message be sent by calling some function encourages linking to extra libraries and makes interaction from scripts much more difficult. This isn't about any technical benefits; keeping the IPC between components open and well-defined is even more important than access to the source code itself if we are to maintain an ecosystem of Free Software. For those of us that would like to have a Free (as in freedom) Software ecosystem survive the current War On General Purpose Computing[2], the campaign by the pro-systemd people is, frankly, terrifying. Sometimes there are more important goals than "faster" or "cleaner API" or "easier to write". Keeping the OS - both the kernel and system-utils - open, free, and interchangeable needs to be a high priority goal, or we will lose the progress the Free Software community has made over the last ~decade. [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDk http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDk [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y
- bitwize 12y ago
  I think it's just largely perception amongst the anti-systemd crowd. Systemd is a virtually unmitigated boon to Linux, but some people fear its relatively tight coupling and lack of adherence to some platonic ideal of the "Unix Philosophy". Indeed, systemd's design is inherently epicurean; the aim is to create a unified base system for Linux that reduces friction and makes people's lives easier. "Turning Linux into Windows" is hyperbole, though; the most used and developed-on non-mobile Unix -- Mac OS X -- is similarly epicurean, and blithely makes use of tightly coupled components designed to work together, to deliver a smooth easy-to-manage experience. And it's eating Linux's lunch.

by pdkl95 12y ago

dviola 12y ago

You mean Qt?

currysausage 12y ago

> The last straw was when they decided to join Pottering's "lets forget Unix and make Linux into Windows" crusade. Could you give a little more background about this? (True curiosity, I don't doubt that what you say is true!)

pdkl95 12y ago
This is going off topic, but because you asked: Yes, there's a bit of hyperbole in that statement, but there is a problem there. Pottering has pushed a very "our way and no other" attitude, even when other people have requirements that aren't met by systemd. Worse, the tight-coupling between components is a perfect example of the "embrace and extend" tactic. The monopoly position systemd currently enjoys has successfully been used to extend into a disturbing number of other components[1]. As for unix-vs-windows - switching to a windows-style binary log and rewriting an inetd into a mandatory "SvcHost.exe" for linux is bad enough, but the real issues is the removing of well-defined barriers between components. Pottering's hatred scripts is a problem, because using scripts as the "glue" in unix is one of the most important features of unix. Keeping many of the the interactions between components in an open and readable format has forced developers to create (and deal with) methods of API that can actually be extended beyond the original project. Systemd returns to the windows style of just making function calls into the current implementation. Being forced to, for example, listen on a unix socket for a command works easily with anything, even into the future. Requiring that same message be sent by calling some function encourages linking to extra libraries and makes interaction from scripts much more difficult. This isn't about any technical benefits; keeping the IPC between components open and well-defined is even more important than access to the source code itself if we are to maintain an ecosystem of Free Software. For those of us that would like to have a Free (as in freedom) Software ecosystem survive the current War On General Purpose Computing[2], the campaign by the pro-systemd people is, frankly, terrifying. Sometimes there are more important goals than "faster" or "cleaner API" or "easier to write". Keeping the OS - both the kernel and system-utils - open, free, and interchangeable needs to be a high priority goal, or we will lose the progress the Free Software community has made over the last ~decade. [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDk http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDk [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nypRYpVKc5Y
bitwize 12y ago
I think it's just largely perception amongst the anti-systemd crowd. Systemd is a virtually unmitigated boon to Linux, but some people fear its relatively tight coupling and lack of adherence to some platonic ideal of the "Unix Philosophy". Indeed, systemd's design is inherently epicurean; the aim is to create a unified base system for Linux that reduces friction and makes people's lives easier. "Turning Linux into Windows" is hyperbole, though; the most used and developed-on non-mobile Unix -- Mac OS X -- is similarly epicurean, and blithely makes use of tightly coupled components designed to work together, to deliver a smooth easy-to-manage experience. And it's eating Linux's lunch.