Re: [TCLUG:9882] GNOME's purpose (was Re: slow system)

[Christopher Reid Palmer <reid@pconline.com>]

On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, John R. Sheets wrote:

> > > GNOME IS NOT A WM.
> > 
> > You don't need to tell *me* that. But it doesn't fill the role of a
> > command shell the way the Mac OS Finder does, or BeOS Tracker, or even
> > (half-assedly) Windows Explorer. 
> 
> Of course not!  It was never GNOME's intent to be a command shell.
> GNOME's purpose is to provide a framework for building applications ...
> such as a graphical command shell app.

I must not have made myself clear. I'm not talking about a bash(1) with
pictures, or a nifty kfm-esque thing where file types are associated with
applications (although that *might* be part of it). The way *sh(1) is
pervasive in the system, spawned by the login process because without it
the system is useless, and is the glue that connects programs to other
programs, is the way a GUI should be. GNOME has the 'G', but not the full
breadth of the 'UI'. To build a true G-UI on top of X would be a
tremendous hack (layers upon bloated layers), and largely pointless. X
will forever be chasing Windows' tail -- the relationship that CDE and Win
3.1 had is the same that GNOME/KDE and Windows 9x have. ('A graphical
Unix! Just as crappy as Windows and now 20% uglier!')

Linux had the chance to start from scratch when it came time to build a
G-UI, and the ball was dropped. 'We need to play catch-up with the lowest
common denominator', everyone seemed to be saying.

Well, that's what we've got: Windows Jr. All the practical reasons you
choose Linux (efficiency, speed, the joy of working in the Unix paradigm)
are nullified by GNOME and KDE, and X in general.


> > It also does not really fill the bill as
> > an API for building coherent and standardised application like Mac OS
> > Toolbox or Win32. 
> 
> Care to back that up with some real facts?  What is GNOME lacking that
> fails to make it a coherent API?

Take a look at the design of NEXTSTEP if you want to know what a real API
for GUI applications looks like.

Not that NEXTSTEP is perfect, but it's complete, and every bit is useful.
GNOME is full of non-solutions to non-problems (Bonobo?), in the Windows
tradition.

> Have you written any applications in GNOME?

No, and on purpose. GNOME doesn't solve any problems that need solving,
and what it does do it does at great cost.

> Are you up to date with the current state of GNOME's component
> system and graphics engine?

I last read up on GNOME about 3 months ago. I don't know what's changed
since then, but I have a feeling it's not the radical retooling it needs
to be.

> It's very easy to make sweeping condemnations, but not so easy to back
> them up.  (c;

Not as easy as assuming I can't back them up, just because I disagree with
you.

I'm pointing out what a G-UI is, and observing that GNOME isn't one. I'm
not condemning anybody's work, just questioning assumptions. 'Big
difference.'

A UI is a command shell. A G-UI is a graphical command shell. X is a
crappy graphics library stuck with masking tape and gum to a very chatty 
network protocol. No amount of sand castle building on top of X will ever
make it a command shell.


'Fine', I hear you saying, 'But put up or shut up.' Fair enough. We'll see
if I get that grant for grad school. I have a better idea and a plan, and
the motivation to implement it.


--
  Christopher Reid Palmer : http://www.innerfireworks.com/