Re: Weakness of Ada is expensive / security / etc. ? Anything else?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2015 17:17:38 -0700 (PDT), NiGHTS wrote:

>> Label text wrapping may depend on the widget size requisition. So you
>> should set the label size explicitly. It could be a GTK bug as well,
>> because it is highly unlikely that anybody would use that for text
>> rendering, there is Gtk_Text_View for that. And because GTK 3 reworked most
>> of widget sizing.
> 
> It affects things like tooltips (built in) and various other things that
> inherently use labels.

They reworked tooltips in GTK 3, I don't know how the new implementation
works, e.g. if you can insert widgets into a tooltip. But I suppose that
Gtk_Label could have issues with size computation interaction with its
container, the tooltip window in this case. Non-wrapping would be a
consequence of that.

> I've explicitly set widths to all inherited widgets
> including the label itself and this had no effect. I made sure Word
> wrapping was enabled and followed all correct guidelines on the subject.
> Again it works in Windows, just not in Linux.

You can always take a look in the GTK sources. Sometimes it helps.

>> GTK is full of bugs, especially GTK 3. But that has nothing to do with Ada.
> 
> I am not blaming Ada. Its a beautiful language. I merely suspect that
> GtkAda's thick bindings have something to do with it.

No. GtkAda is semi-thick, script-generated. Most bugs are GTK's own.
Problems you described IMO cannot be GtkAda's, per design of. If you had a
GtkAda bug, the effect would be program crash. E.g. I guess that Set_String
of Gtk_Tree_Store is such a bug.

> I am not dismissing
> the possibility that GTK 3 is also at fault, but in my mind I feel that
> the GTK core library is probably more tested than GTKAda (A misconception
> maybe? I would love to be wrong about this.)

GTK is poorly maintained and a quite mess. My encounter with bug reports
was very disappointing.

GtkAda designers do read GtkAda mailing list, they even respond there!
(:-)) The only problem with GtkAda maintenance is that the new release
comes out once a year. It would not be a problem, if building it under
Windows from the sources (they are freely available from the code base at
any time) weren't such a huge trouble.

>> Style is much more than colors. All widget style properties can be changed.
> 
> Well you were talking about "themes", and no doubt styles involve both
> color and structure. On that note I am quite disappointed by how limited
> the GTK CSS support is with regards to things like setting margins and
> other structural parameters. They simply don't work. I can only use the
> CSS to define colors, fonts, and backgrounds. I've been forced to hard
> code structural things like margins which I feel is bad form as it should
> belong in the style sheet.

GTK 2 had resource files. They dropped them and replaced by CSS. RC files
were bad CSS is worse.

>> There is GtkAda mail list.
> 
> I've looked and couldn't find it. I would love to know what the address is
> if you don't mind me asking.

gtkada@lists.adacore.com

> I fell in love with the GNATCOLL SQL philosophy. Unfortunately the
> designers have not done a good job of generating interest in the project.

Well, it depends on the potential customers. Personally, I am pretty
allergic to any code generators and don't want to contaminate my tool chain
with that. Then, I don't use anything but ODBC or *statically* linked
SQLite3.

> In my case I can't get any support whatsoever with using that library and
> it seems like no one here takes it seriously. Its a shame.

You should get GNAT Pro, if you want support. Otherwise, you must look into
the sources. Doing that you will probably join me in my resentment toward
code generators...

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de