just say moNO

Posted Mar 9, 2010 13:37 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)
In reply to: just say moNO by linuxjacques
Parent article: Try the Linux desktop of the future (TuxRadar)

Because most gnome devs have used the c bindings which can be rather a pain at times (mostly boilerplate or other work that the compiler takes care of for you in other languages) plus a real hate for c++ and java. (IMHO, the GNOME c++ bindings are awesome).

just say moNO

Posted Mar 9, 2010 13:50 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (3 responses)

A number of GNOME applications are written in C++, Python, Vala and other
languages and the community have always been open to that. Some folks use
Mono especially from Novell.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 9, 2010 14:51 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (2 responses)

"A number" yes. Not an extremely large number, as far as I can tell. But lack of non-C binding experience is what I've seen driving this. (I can't find any links immediately that support this; this is just my impression after reading planet gnome and listening to them on #gnome-hackers.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 9, 2010 14:52 UTC (Tue) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, perhaps python is pretty widespread in retrospect. Vala is not very widely used atm. C++ is used more, but not a whole lot more as far as I can tell. Python is dynamically-typed, tho, and semi-scripting so it's not precisely the same.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 9, 2010 15:00 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Python is extremely popular (http://www.pygtk.org/applications.html) and C++
has a few important apps (Abiword and Inkscape for example) as well Vala is
fairly new and considering that a considerable number of apps have already
been written and I use some of them on a regular basis including shotwell
and deja-dup.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 10, 2010 2:32 UTC (Wed) by lwkejrlej (guest, #64237) [Link] (1 responses)

> plus a real hate for c++ and java.

Is this really the case ? It would be a shame, as replicating C++ features in C is a real pain (GObject is a mess when compared to C++ classes). Why reinvent the wheel ?

just say moNO

Posted Mar 10, 2010 7:31 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

I don't think it is true and atleast I don't see any basis for that claim
whatsoever. I am not sure why you consider GObject to be an issue and it
would be interesting to hear more analysis on that. Toolkits tend to use
their own dialects and extensions anyway (Qt's moc and signal/slot
mechanism..)

just say moNO

Posted Mar 10, 2010 11:40 UTC (Wed) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (2 responses)

I believe that many of the original Mono developers at Ximian / Novell had worked on the Evolution mail client, which is a GNOME application written in C++ (and is not exactly famous for being rock-solid and lightweight). Mono was partly an attempt to make an easier way to develop applications than using C or C++. So yes, you may be right that it was motivated by 'hate for C++'.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 10, 2010 16:44 UTC (Wed) by sbishop (guest, #33061) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't see any C++ Evolution code, though I am no Evolution hacker and may just not have looked in the right places.

just say moNO

Posted Mar 12, 2010 11:16 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

I stand corrected. From the early Changelog entries it's clear that most development was done at Helix Code (later Ximian, now Novell). But it remains an open question whether using C++ might have made development easier, without needing the bigger step of moving to C# and a managed runtime.