[blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Hi,

http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html

And perhaps a good reason why we should be looking for an alternative to 
GtkAda.

Martin

PS: it is possible to add additional authors to the "Ada programming 
blog" - mail me if you are interested.

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[petter_fryklund]

On 23 Jan, 09:54, Martin Krischik <krisc...@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html
>
> And perhaps a good reason why we should be looking for an alternative to
> GtkAda.
>
> Martin
>
> PS: it is possible to add additional authors to the "Ada programming
> blog" - mail me if you are interested.
>
> --
> mailto://krisc...@users.sourceforge.net
> Ada programming at:http://ada.krischik.com

I learned from my customer to keep MMI and Application apart. I have a
couple of hobby application under construction where I use Tcl/Tk for
MMI and Ada, of course, for Application. They communicate using TCP/
IP.

Regards,
Petter

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

petter_fryklund@hotmail.com schrieb:

> On 23 Jan, 09:54, Martin Krischik <krisc...@users.sourceforge.net>
> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html
>>
>> And perhaps a good reason why we should be looking for an alternative to
>> GtkAda.
> 
> I learned from my customer to keep MMI and Application apart. I have a
> couple of hobby application under construction where I use Tcl/Tk for
> MMI and Ada, of course, for Application. They communicate using TCP/
> IP.

Good point. Only the GPS has not been designed that way :-( so I still 
need to compile the uncompilable.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: [blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> Hi,
>
> http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html

It seems you forgot to read pkg-config/README.Win32; it says:

"On Unix, pkg-config is built using its own copy of GLib 1.2.8. On
Windows, we use the normal GLib available for Windows (2.0.x). Yes,
this does introduce a kind of circular dependency. But, that can be
worked around. The circular dependency only appears if one uses the
configure mechanism to build GLib. GLib's configure script checks for
pkg-config. pkg-config depends on GLib. Thus, starting from scratch,
with no GLib and no pkg-config, using configure, there would indeed be
a Catch-22 situation. However, GLib can be built just fine using the
manually written makefiles for mingw or MSVC. And if somebody does
want to build GLib on Win32 using configure, she can first install a
prebuilt pkgconfig."

That, of course, rather justifies your hatred of GTK+ and GNOME :)

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: [blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Tero Koskinen]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:22:09 -0800 (PST) Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> Martin Krischik wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html
> 
> It seems you forgot to read pkg-config/README.Win32; it says:
> "On Unix, pkg-config is built using its own copy of GLib 1.2.8. On
> Windows, we use the normal GLib available for Windows (2.0.x). Yes,
> this does introduce a kind of circular dependency. 

OpenBSD people have reimplemented pkg-config using Perl. You can
probably port it to Windows/Linux/Solaris/etc if you want to avoid
the circular dependency. (I am assuming that Perl doesn't depend
on glib/pkg-config or you can get binary version easily.)

See
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/pkg-config/

-- 
Tero Koskinen - http://iki.fi/tero.koskinen/

Re: [blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Tero Koskinen schrieb:
> On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:22:09 -0800 (PST) Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>> Martin Krischik wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html
>> It seems you forgot to read pkg-config/README.Win32; it says:
>> "On Unix, pkg-config is built using its own copy of GLib 1.2.8. On
>> Windows, we use the normal GLib available for Windows (2.0.x). Yes,
>> this does introduce a kind of circular dependency. 
> 
> OpenBSD people have reimplemented pkg-config using Perl. You can
> probably port it to Windows/Linux/Solaris/etc if you want to avoid
> the circular dependency. (I am assuming that Perl doesn't depend
> on glib/pkg-config or you can get binary version easily.)

In fact - perl is part of MSYS - the MinGW developers package.

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: [blog] Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta schrieb:

> Martin Krischik wrote:

>> http://ada-programming.blogspot.com/2008/01/why-i-hate-gtkgnome.html

> It seems you forgot to read pkg-config/README.Win32; it says:

Ah, yes I checked the README file ony :-( .

> "On Unix, pkg-config is built using its own copy of GLib 1.2.8.

This does sound flaky to me as well.

> That, of course, rather justifies your hatred of GTK+ and GNOME :)

And reading glib-2.14.2/README.Win32 does not improve my mood. Besides 
there is only a glib-2.14.2/makefile.msc but no 
glib-2.14.2/makefile.mingw :-( - damm.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Maxim Reznik]

On 24 янв, 09:44, Martin Krischik <krisc...@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> And reading glib-2.14.2/README.Win32 does not improve my mood. Besides
> there is only a glib-2.14.2/makefile.msc but no
> glib-2.14.2/makefile.mingw :-( - damm.

Hi Martin,

Once I spent some time building Gtk+-2.10.0 under MinGW and have some
success. Result is on http://www.ada-ru.org/win_bin_en
It contans build script and bunch of patches, besides binary
libraries.

I think build script is self explaning, but feel free to ask questions
if you need.

I compile pkgconfig twice. Bootstrap version of pkgconfig uses
included in it glib-1.2.8. When glib is ready I rebuild pkgconfig to
use latest glib.

Best regards,
--
Maxim Reznik

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Ludovic Brenta]

The one thing I'm wondering is why you guys want to rebuild GTK+ in
the first place? Are there no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere so
you can concentrate on GtkAda?

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta schrieb:

> The one thing I'm wondering is why you guys want to rebuild GTK+ in
> the first place? Are there no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere so
> you can concentrate on GtkAda?

Sadly no: most pre-build packages are either M$-C compiled or to old or 
both.

Or - like the Glib which comes with GNAT-GPL are distributed without 
devel package.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Maxim Reznik schrieb:
> On 24 янв, 09:44, Martin Krischik <krisc...@users.sourceforge.net>
> wrote:
>> And reading glib-2.14.2/README.Win32 does not improve my mood. Besides
>> there is only a glib-2.14.2/makefile.msc but no
>> glib-2.14.2/makefile.mingw :-( - damm.
> 
> Hi Martin,
> 
> Once I spent some time building Gtk+-2.10.0 under MinGW and have some
> success. Result is on http://www.ada-ru.org/win_bin_en
> It contains build script and bunch of patches, besides binary
> libraries.
> 
> I think build script is self explaning, but feel free to ask questions
> if you need.
> 
> I compile pkgconfig twice. Bootstrap version of pkgconfig uses
> included in it glib-1.2.8. When glib is ready I rebuild pkgconfig to
> use latest glib.

I now got the OpenBSD perl version now and it seems to work. And if not 
I come back to your solution.

And thanks for the .diff files - I think they will be helpful.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Brian Drummond]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 03:04:14 -0800 (PST), Ludovic Brenta
<ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:

>The one thing I'm wondering is why you guys want to rebuild GTK+ in
>the first place? Are there no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere so
>you can concentrate on GtkAda?

Speaking as a user who tried GTKada about six months ago...

I had a little time between projects to evaluate Ada for future development; the
language was attractive, GTKada looked attractive for cross-platform GUI
development, and the "testgtk" demo package built easily (on Windows).

(Downloads from libre : Gnat 2007, GTKada for Windows from Gnat 2006. 
OS : Win2000 SP4)

BUT... there are so many ways to crash TestGTK (on Windows 2000) just by
pressing buttons. It may be rock solid on Linux but I have my doubts...
Some of the bugs were easy to find and fix at the Ada level, which was actually
reassuring; the demo thus (accidentally, I presume!) illustrated how Ada really
does help to promote reliable programs.

Other bugs however were quickly traced into the C level stuff, which disappered
into the GTK library. These were pretty fundamental bugs ; massive memory leaks
and crashes.

For example, in the "Plot 3D" demo, pressing the "Rotate" buttons had three
unexpected effects on my system; both with the pre-built "Testgtk" executable
and my build. 
(1) Some of the buttons disappear : not very serious, probably fixable within
Ada. (not attempted; I'd probably have had to understand the signalling model to
tell the buttons to redraw themselves)
(2) About 300K memory leak for each press of a Rotate button..
(3) The 32nd press exited the program with a PROGRAM ERROR : Exception Access
Violation which the stack trace suggested came from below the GTK interface.

To deal with them any further I would have had to find the GTK 2.8.0 sources,
and learn to build that on Windows.(Unfortunately, other work then intervened,
as it does)

So I concluded, albeit without having got very far into the evaluation:

There are no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere (I can find at least) so
I could concentrate on GtkAda.

- Brian

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Brian Drummond schrieb:

> BUT... there are so many ways to crash TestGTK (on Windows 2000) just by
> pressing buttons. It may be rock solid on Linux but I have my doubts...

Mee too. I think that Gtk+/GNOME is just not as stable or reliable as 
Qt/KDE. And it has been so ever since GNOME 0.x.

I tried evolution (when it hat more functionality then KMail) and went 
back to KMail because evolution was unstable.

I tried nautilus (also when it hat more functionality then Konqueror) 
and went back to Konqueror also because nautilus was unstable.

I tried pan (again when it hat more functionality then KNode) and went 
back to KNode again because because pan was unstable.

Nowadays it is all water under the bridge - The KDE programs overtook 
the GNOME applications long ago in terms of functionality (partly 
because GNOME applications have been slimmed down).

I only try to compile Gtk+ because of the GPS (GNAT Programming Studio). 
If I wanted to create a GUI application I would use QtAda or AWS.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Pascal Obry]

Brian Drummond a �crit :
> There are no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere (I can find at least) so
> I could concentrate on GtkAda.

What about the Gimp prebuilt Gtk+ shared libraries on Windows? I'm using 
Gimp and I have yet to see it crashes. Looks like the Gtk+ port to 
Windows is not in a bad shape.

GPS is also quite stable on Windows and is coming with the shared Gtk+ 
libraries.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Pascal Obry schrieb:
> Brian Drummond a écrit :
>> There are no suitable prebuilt binaries anywhere (I can find at least) so
>> I could concentrate on GtkAda.
> 
> What about the Gimp prebuilt Gtk+ shared libraries on Windows? I'm using 
> Gimp and I have yet to see it crashes. Looks like the Gtk+ port to 
> Windows is not in a bad shape.
> GPS is also quite stable on Windows and is coming with the shared Gtk+ 
> libraries.

Indeed I tried them once. The problem here has been described on the 
blog - but maybe not as clearly as I should have. And it is the same 
problem I faced with Solaris:

When you just install GNOME from OpenSuSE 10.3 and only apply security 
updates then GNOME works pretty stable these days (hasn't always been 
that way - 0.x and 1.x was atrocious). However: I advice strictly 
against activating the "GNOME STABLE" [1] upgrade channel.

The best what will happen to you is that smart [2] will report version 
conflicts and will refuse to install the mess.

There worse what can happen is that smart will resolve the version 
conflicts with 32 bit libraries - on your 64 bit system. Leaving you 
with an unusable system. And downgrading is the one area where rpm based 
installer have not yet caught up with dep based installer.

Why am I telling you all that? Well because GtkAda is tied to one 
specific version of Gtk+ - and the rest comes from there.

Martin

[1] There is a "GNOME unstable" as well - don't even what to think about 
what happens when you activate that one.
[2] yast became unusable ever since Novell (Miguel de Icaza) took over.

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> When you just install GNOME from OpenSuSE 10.3 and only apply security
> updates then GNOME works pretty stable these days (hasn't always been
> that way - 0.x and 1.x was atrocious). However: I advice strictly
> against activating the "GNOME STABLE" [1] upgrade channel.
>
> The best what will happen to you is that smart [2] will report version
> conflicts and will refuse to install the mess.
>
> There worse what can happen is that smart will resolve the version
> conflicts with 32 bit libraries - on your 64 bit system. Leaving you
> with an unusable system. And downgrading is the one area where rpm based
> installer have not yet caught up with dep based installer.

I'm surprised with your horror stories. Surely there must be other
platforms besides Debian where GTK+ is solid, dependable, and
buildable?

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta schrieb:
> Martin Krischik wrote:
>> When you just install GNOME from OpenSuSE 10.3 and only apply security
>> updates then GNOME works pretty stable these days (hasn't always been
>> that way - 0.x and 1.x was atrocious). However: I advice strictly
>> against activating the "GNOME STABLE" [1] upgrade channel.
>>
>> The best what will happen to you is that smart [2] will report version
>> conflicts and will refuse to install the mess.
>>
>> There worse what can happen is that smart will resolve the version
>> conflicts with 32 bit libraries - on your 64 bit system. Leaving you
>> with an unusable system. And downgrading is the one area where rpm based
>> installer have not yet caught up with dep based installer.
> 
> I'm surprised with your horror stories. Surely there must be other
> platforms besides Debian where GTK+ is solid, dependable, and
> buildable?

As I said: fresh off the DVD GNOME is quite ok. I think the problem are 
the dependencies - If - for example for a DVD version - they are 
carefully tested and resolved for the hole distribution the result will 
be stable.

The same when AdaCore carefully creates one oft there Pro or GPL releases.

Or when the GIMP Team creates a Windows GIMP.

But never try a hot upgrade - especially when you use a 64 bit system. 
The GNOME community does not act as one big team (as the KDE community 
does) and it only takes one of the many micro teams to forget to create 
a 64 bit version of there library and disaster will avalange from there.

Debian on the other as meta team can compensate for Gtk+/GNOMES 
organisational and design shortcomings.

As it is the best news of the young new year is the KDE 4 version for 
Windows and the best Ada related news of last year where the restart of 
the QtAda project.

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Pascal Obry]

Martin,

> As I said: fresh off the DVD GNOME is quite ok. I think the problem are 
> the dependencies - If - for example for a DVD version - they are 
> carefully tested and resolved for the hole distribution the result will 
> be stable.

There must be something else. I'm running Debian/GNOME and I've always 
been on the testing branch. Not problem. Some glitches from time to time 
(well it is more like 2 problems a year) but that's all!

And yes I'm upgrading my development computer daily.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Pascal Obry schrieb:
> Martin,
> 
>> As I said: fresh off the DVD GNOME is quite ok. I think the problem 
>> are the dependencies - If - for example for a DVD version - they are 
>> carefully tested and resolved for the hole distribution the result 
>> will be stable.
> 
> There must be something else. I'm running Debian/GNOME and I've always 
> been on the testing branch. Not problem. Some glitches from time to time 
> (well it is more like 2 problems a year) but that's all!
> 
> And yes I'm upgrading my development computer daily.

I see two possible differences:

Debian   vs openSUSE
x86_32   vs  x86_64

And yes I do consider a switch to Debian for the next system.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> Pascal Obry schrieb:
> > Martin,
> >
> >> As I said: fresh off the DVD GNOME is quite ok. I think the problem
> >> are the dependencies - If - for example for a DVD version - they are
> >> carefully tested and resolved for the hole distribution the result
> >> will be stable.
> >
> > There must be something else. I'm running Debian/GNOME and I've always
> > been on the testing branch. Not problem. Some glitches from time to time
> > (well it is more like 2 problems a year) but that's all!
> >
> > And yes I'm upgrading my development computer daily.
>
> I see two possible differences:
>
> Debian   vs openSUSE
> x86_32   vs  x86_64

I have been running Debian testing amd64 (aka x86_64) for over a year
and I have never had any problems when upgrading (approximately once a
week). I think the reason SuSE has problems is because it mixes 32-
and 64-bit packages together whereas Debian keeps them separate.
Multilib (the act of installing libraries for multiple architectures
on a single machine) is tricky and not yet standardised properly.

> And yes I do consider a switch to Debian for the next system.

There was a legend long ago that, after a few years' experience, all
GNU/Linux users eventually switched to Debian.  That was certainly my
case; I switched after being disappointed by Red Hat Linux 8.
Personally, I'm waiting for Solaris to be released under GPLv3 and
then I'll consider a switch to Debian GNU/Solaris :)

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta schrieb:

> I think the reason SuSE has problems is because it mixes 32-
> and 64-bit packages together whereas Debian keeps them separate.
> Multilib (the act of installing libraries for multiple architectures
> on a single machine) is tricky and not yet standardised properly.

Indeed - as I said: the worse thing to happen is a 64 -> 32 bit 
downgrade because some of the micro teams forgot to create a 64 library 
- which had previously be available. This leads to nasty situation where 
Library X is available as 1.5(32) and 1.4(64) and Application Y needs 
libX-1.5.so.

Of course SuSE supplies 32bit for all the tools without true 64 bit 
support. And I am not speaking of closed source tools like i.E. acrobat 
reader here - open source project like Open-Object-Rexx have trouble as 
well to provide 64 bit versions.

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Stefan Bellon]

On Fr, 25 Jan, Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> There was a legend long ago that, after a few years' experience, all
> GNU/Linux users eventually switched to Debian.

It took only me 14 days. ;-) When I started with GNU/Linux eleven years
ago it was a SUSE, but it was so weird that I switched to Debian 14 days
later and I've been staying with Debian (always unstable) since.

-- 
Stefan Bellon

Re: Why I hate Gtk+/GNOME (from the perspective of an Ada supporter)

[Martin Krischik]

Pascal Obry wrote:

> Martin,
> 
>> As I said: fresh off the DVD GNOME is quite ok. I think the problem are
>> the dependencies - If - for example for a DVD version - they are
>> carefully tested and resolved for the hole distribution the result will
>> be stable.
> 
> There must be something else. I'm running Debian/GNOME and I've always
> been on the testing branch. Not problem. Some glitches from time to time
> (well it is more like 2 problems a year) but that's all!

I forgot to mention: I run a weekly update as well on about 20 other upgrade
channels (+ the critical security fix update channel) - including KDE4 - no
trouble there. All the other openSUSE teams are able to create reliable
continues upgrades.

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com