Reitter: Answering the question: "How do I develop an app for GNOME?"

I'm especially willing to be corrected about GNOME when it comes to which languages are used in which parts of the system. However, I feel that my point about the languages people have wanted to use pervasively in these systems still stands. My impression is that it has been like someone having a driving licence for a car going into a dealership and being offered a motorcycle or truck because the dealership isn't interested in what most of their customers want or need.

I used to be more interested in writing desktop applications, and I would have wanted to do this in Python. Admittedly, you could do this with PyQt/PyKDE and the corresponding Gtk/GNOME offering, but despite the best efforts of the project maintainers concerned (specifically referring to PyQt/PyKDE here), things never seemed to settle enough to support those projects fully in the underlying system. There were some attempts to make "official" bindings for KDE 3, and Kubuntu did introduce some Python-based components, but I perceive those things to be too little, too late.

Offering me JavaScript is like offering me a motorcycle. I could certainly learn how to ride one properly, but as others have pointed out, by the time I have done that my interests may be better served elsewhere.