Re: removing spatial viewer from GWorkspace

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,
> 1) the fact that something doesn't "fit into the NeXT paradigm" should
> never ever be used as a reason for not including something in this
> project.  I find the reasoning to be outdated and unacceptable since
> NeXT no longer exists.
>
>    
this argument is unacceptable too sorry. The reasoning is perfectly 
valid. We are not speaking about "Greg's file manager" written with a 
certain paradigm and implemented in objective-c and GNUstep.

The topic is gworkspace. GWorkspace clearly has a paradigm and there are 
features that fit it more, other that fit it less. GWorkspace's design 
happens to follow NeXT's. It doesn't matter at all if NeXT is dead and 
nobody knows about it anymore.
So my argument could have been written "It doesn't fit into GWorkspace's 
paradigm" and would have meant the same, I only wanted to be more explicit.

We can see that mixing paradigms can yield complex and inconsistent user 
interface. The NeXT workspace was nice and excellent, the Mac classic 
Finder was legendary in its working (although with limitations). The 
result of merging them yielded an inconsistent software in MacOS X which 
was then reviewed in 10.3 creating a monster, perhaps one of the worst 
part of Mac, at least in my own personal opinion. But it comforts me 
that I read critiques of it from others too.
> 2) I would like to see a more reasoned discussion regarding why it
> should or should not be removed based on actual facts, not personal
> feelings.  So far neither side has produced any (the idea that it
> might bitrot in the future is not sufficient.... Fact of the matter us
> that it hasn't done so yet)
>    
Well, your argument about bitrotting is moot, since I am working on 
GWorkspace ever since Enrico left the software (as I try to do with the 
rest of his work). Several parts of GWorkspace already needed fixing and 
maintenance.

As features get added to software we can also from time to time review 
if something is no longer essential or useful.

I may also add that facts may aid decisions, but since the work done 
here is voluntary it ends up to the personal taste of one or few 
persons. I don't want to enumerate them, but you know well it is so. 
From decisions in the core architecture, support of platforms, usage of 
certain programs...
Sometimes these decisions get made without even consulting the public.

I discussed this matter in the IRC channel and I got informative and 
useful answers, I decided to widen the discussion on the mailing list. 
What we had up to know is certainly not a constructive or even 
informative discussion.

Cheers,
   Riccardo