Re: Windows and GnuStep

[Jiva DeVoe]

Let's not shoot the messenger here.  I think he's got some valid  
points, if I may summarize in a slightly different way:

1. The GNUstep home page is misleading in it's refutation of the  
Hillegas book's comments about GNUstep.  Clearly, a book about Cocoa  
programing is referring to GNUstep-gui when it says it does not work  
well on Windows.  The GNUstep perspective that newbie users (the  
target audience of the page in question) should somehow catch the  
difference between gui and base is naive.  Especially, when the  
GNUstep home page features pictures about how easy it is to make gui  
applications.  I personally agree that this refutation SHOULD be  
changed or removed until GNUstep-gui (ie: the whole package) works  
well on both windows and linux.  I think it makes the GNUstep team  
look bad when a potential new user is disappointed because they  
misread this entry.

2. Until camaelon, a windows theme, WildMenus, and a couple of other  
themes become part of the actual core of GNUstep, refutation #3 on  
the book clarification page also is misleading.  I have installed  
Camaelon myself - it's documentation was poor, and finding any themes  
was nearly impossible (had to dig around to find the nesedah theme...  
it was not linked on the home page).  Now I know this is being  
integrated with GNUstep right now.  But again, the book clarification  
page should be changed to reflect not the positive "Oh look! We have  
themes, this is so wrong!" statement it makes to the more truthful,  
"Yes, this is true, but we're fixing that."

3. Point 7 on the same page is also incorrect.  Project Center is  
amazingly buggy from both CVS and official releases.  There should be  
no shame in bugs, but let's not lie and pretend it's functional for  
actual work.  I for one don't think it is.  There DOES appear to be  
"Project Manager" which seems a little better, but what's the  
difference between the two? And which is official?  GNUstep is very  
disorganized with it's tools, and the ones in the main tree are  
buggy.   GORM actually seems to be doing pretty well, but it crashes  
regularly when using camaelon (or at least it did a month or so  
ago)... so you see, the conflict here?  The page both tells the new  
users to use this great theme engine, but it also makes our very own  
tools crash.

Hey, it's true, no one gets paid to do this stuff... but if GNUstep  
actually wants to be taken seriously... the home page has to be  
honest and truthful about it's state.


On Feb 1, 2006, at 4:24 PM, Andrew Ruder wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 10:48:26AM -0500, Andy Satori wrote:
> > I've got a few questions and I hope they don't come across wrong.  I
> > want to clarify something before I begin. Yes, I'm frustrated.
>
> Understandable; software can be frustrating at times.

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