Re: Open URL in NSWorkspace

[Nicolas Roard]

Salut fabien,

On 8/3/07, Fabien VALLON <fabien@sonappart.net> wrote:
> On Fri, August 3, 2007 1:00 pm, Nicolas Roard wrote:
> > And as a free software users, we are better off with GNUstep existing
> > than without, no ?
> > So what exactly is your point ?
>
> From a user point of view, nothing.

>From a user point of view ?.. GNUstep is aimed at developers, not
users.. for developers it'd be hard to say GNUstep just amount to
"nothing". For users, it principally depends on which gnustep
application they use, which desktop they use. As a developer I'm
really thankful that GNUstep exists, as a user I'm lamenting the fact
that there's isn't enough GNUstep apps.

> GNUstep is still running after Cocoa and still introduce new bugs etc ...
> This is pure waste of times / effort.

I don't really think such an enormous amount of time is passed on
"running after cocoa" instead of fixing existing bugs. Those two
things are not orthogonal! and most of the time it's not even done by
the same developers...
And bugs are fixed routinely. Show me one example where a bug fix was
ignored and reimplementing some new cocoa widget took the precedence.

> Who use GNUstep/Etoile/Backbone on the desktop in every day usage ? 5
> developpers ?

GNUstep by itself isn't really a desktop (although with a bunch of
gnustep apps you have something close). Etoile aims to be one, but
it's still in its infancy. Personally my goal is to be able to use
Etoile as my *main* desktop in one year time.. we'll see how that
goes.

Now as an aside point, I used GNUstep daily for my research project,
and although it was more a server-related project, it also had some
desktop client, and let me tell you I was really happy to have gnustep
at my fingertips :)

> The most usable application based on GNUstep is GNUMail.
> Who post ( even on the GNUstep mailing list ) with GNUMail ?

I used to -- it was my main client for a while -- but not anymore
since gmail happened. I'm constently hopping from computers to
computers and the convenience was just there.
I'm still missing some of GNUMail charasteristics though!

> Why can we/you simply stay at OpenStep with few improvements :
> Exemple: Theming, autolayout, remove Archiver by KeyedArchiver, extend
> services  (?)
>
> That would be enough for 90% of the applications.
>
> There is so much thing to do !!!!
>
> - Lot of bugs
> - Printing from cairo
> - Page Layout panel
> - Usable Text system
> - better usability for controls
> - builtin window Manager (?)
> - Fully feature Workspace.
> ..
>
> This would take 1 or 2 years, even with 10 developpers !

But people *are* working on all of that !
Really, I don't see a lot of that "le'ts add new cocoa code but not
fix existing bugs" attitude you stigmatise.
- Printing from cairo: fred is working on that
- Usable Text System: that's a Summer of Code project, currently going on !
- builtin window manager: why ? is that even supposed to be in the
OpenStep spec ? :)
- fully feature workspace: again, not in the spec, beside Enrico is
working on GWorkspace, no ? and Etoile has its own as well...

>
> For -gui :
> Why would you Cocoa compatibility ( porting a "real" Cocoa app is
> impossible with real work ) ?
> Why would you Win32 compatibility ? ( there is tons of framework that
> works better on Win32 )

Why wouldn't you ? For Win32 specifically, Windows development is such
a pain that I sure would love to simply have to recompile gnustep apps
on Windows.

> Adding more code is bad for GNUstep/Etoile ressources ( number of
> developpers ). It is getting worse.
>
> Having Etoile and GNUstep separate is already bad IMO.

I think we disagree on that. I really think it's better to have Etoile
(or another desktop) separated from GNUstep itself -- more clarity,
more focused work. Beside it's not like Etoile devs aren't *also*
GNUstep committers.

> Please read again your signature.
> That just what I'm talking about :))

hehe. I know. But GNUstep by itself doesn't answer what we want to do
with Etoile. As you love sigs, here's another one: "Make everything as
simple as possible, but not simpler" :-P

Cheers,

-- 
Nicolas Roard
"La perfection, ce n'est pas quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, c'est
quand il n'y a plus rien à enlever." -- Antoine de St-Exupéry