The first Gnash beta is out [LWN.net]

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 8, 2008 12:30 UTC (Sat) by sylware (guest, #35259)
Parent article: The first Gnash beta is out

There is also swfdec. It does work fine for many flash based video players on 32 bits systems. It has some issues with 64 bits systems (video playback is not smooth). One of the main difference between swfdec and gnash: gnash is a C++ bloat/mess based on boost C++ library and swfdef is a clean C lib...

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The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 0:32 UTC (Sun) by aya (guest, #19767) [Link] (6 responses)

Are you saying, in 2008, that an end-user application is inherently worse than an alternative
because it's implemented in C++?

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 19:43 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (4 responses)

I hope he doesn't use Firefox, Konqueror, or any WebKit or Gecko-based 
browser then.

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 20:43 UTC (Sun) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link] (3 responses)

Indeed, I quite dislike the use of C++ for gecko. We do not live in a perfect world. AFAIK,
Spidermonkey is plain C, then nothing is lost yet. :)

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 21:28 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

The point is, what flaw can you point at in Gecko or Konqueror *that is 
attributable to the use of C++ in those applications*? Gecko in particular 
has lots of uglinesses (lots of XPCOM for one), but a lot of that was 
because of *restrictions* on what C++ features could be used, requiring 
reimplementations of huge heaps of what the language already does, only 
worse: if the whole language had been usable from the start, Gecko would 
likely have eliminated a lot of those uglinesses.

If you can't point at any systematic flaws in either of these apps 
(preferably similar flaws), then your criticism is groundless. (I'm afraid 
that from your comments, it seems you're a simplicity-for-the-sake-of-it 
man who doesn't understand that sometimes driving complexity into the 
language enables you to make the things built atop that language simpler.)

(Not that I like C++ much either, mostly because the syntax of a lot of 
stuff related to templates and the STL is just icky. Lovely *ideas*, 
horrible *horrible* syntax. But I don't think that using C++ necessarily 
makes a program bad.)

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 21:54 UTC (Sun) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link] (1 responses)

>I'm afraid that from your comments, it seems you're a simplicity-for-the-
>sake-of-it man who doesn't understand that sometimes driving complexity >into the language
enables you to make the things built atop that language >simpler.)
That's schoolar sighted. In the reality, coding clean object-oriented software is *hard*: with
object-oriented semantic hardwired directly into the syntax, coders tend to produce a kind of
"object-orientish" mixture, just for the sake to be "object-oriented".
That's from the code I read and my experience.
BTW, if you dislike the STL... have a look at the boost lib... gnash uses it...

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 11, 2008 8:37 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Um, I *like* the STL. I dislike its *syntax*. I can't even tell if you 
consider Boost better than the STL, or worse...

(Anyway, it's plain to me that you're not reading anything here clearly, 
so I'll stop trying to talk to you.)

The first Gnash beta is out

Posted Mar 9, 2008 20:39 UTC (Sun) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]

Nope, I just read the code from both apps.

From what I can see is that object-oriented languages lead quite easily to brain damaged
design for applications... I would even say faster and easier than C. "Easier is the path to
the dark side" said once a wise ET.
Nethertheless, it does exist very clean C++ applications. IMHO they are quite harder to code.