Re: Sun de-emphasizes GNOME devel platform, supports KDE apps

> On Tuesday 16 September 2003 07:36, Timothy R. Butler wrote:
> > GTK-Friendly Apps
> > =================
> > OpenOffice.org
> > Mozilla
> 
> how are these GTK friendly, exactly?

  Mozilla is partially based on GTK+ partially. OO.o is developed by a
pro-GNOME organization and is being semi-integrated into GNOME by
Ximian.

> > KDE/Qt-based
> 
> personally, i use the KDE equivs for all the apps you listed, with the 
> exception of the GIMP,  in the Gtk+ section and find that they meet or exceed 
> the Gtk+ apps for my needs ... 

  I dunno. I've tried to use Kopete and it just hasn't done it for me.
That's not bad, its way younger than Gaim. But, I mean, Gaim has more
functionality, its easier to manage people (and IIRC, you can't edit
contacts in Kopete, etc.).  That's not because I don't want to use
Kopete -- how I've tried over the past year! -- but I end up giving up.

  JuK looks good. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

> having watched the "GNOME has all the apps" meme develop, here's my take on 
> it: the concept was a fall-back position popularized by various people in the 
> GNOME community (most trolls on web boards, it seems)... when KDE 
> increasingly became the desktop env of choice, the GNOME supporters started 
> saying "ok, so KDE is the DE, but GNOME is the provider of the apps". 

  Well, to an extent, that's true. XMMS, Gimp, Evolution, AbiWord, etc.,
are probably more popular than any KDE (or other) alternative.

> things are changing, however. today KDE has Juk and Kopete, which IMHO 
> outclass XMMS and GAIM. 

  I haven't found that yet, but I do really run my IM program hard. I'm
also very comfortable with GAIM's AIM like UI.

> KGPG is a lot nicer than Searhorse, IMHO. Kontact 

  Can't say. I still do GPG the old fashioned way. :-)

> draws the Evolution gap closer. KWord is really quite useful, as are KSpread 

  Yes, Kontact looks great. I'm not debating KDE's strides, just
suggesting something about the current state of things.

  KWord is useful, and I use it for light writing, but it simply isn't
good enough yet. AbiWord is a bit better, although not stunningly so.

> and KPresenter. 

  My big issue with this is that it can't open PowerPoint without
problems... at least my PowerPoint 2000 documents always come up blank.

> so KDE's apps are no longer such a sore spot; there are very 
> few app needs that remain unmet within the Qt/KDE world, including a solid 
> paint app and project management.

  True. I think KDE's great. I just think its always had a few weak
areas. Stuff like Konqueror and the KIO system are unmatched, however,
IMO. And I haven't seen a good alternative to Kate.

> at the same time KDE is coming out with some ground breaking (at least for 
> Free Software) desktop apps, such as desktop sharing, kwallet, KDevelop 3, 
> Quanta, Umbrello, KStars, Kig... there are Gtk+/GNOME apps for some of these 
> user needs, but nothing that really measures up...

  True.

> but the meme persists, and it becomes self-fulfilling sometimes as people 
> often default to using whatever the Gtk+ "superior app of the day" is.

  Well, I personally just find it depressing. For as long as I've been
using KDE I've wanted the ability to have a totally KDE desktop (at
least concerning basic apps). So far I haven't made any progress and
I've just "stepped backwards," so to speak, by moving to Evolution. I'd
still like to figure out why it searches so much faster.

> this is somewhere that KDE could stand to see some PR work done to help 
> educate people on the application choices available to them. after all, if 
> you're running KDE as your desktop environment, running KDE applications will 
> ensure better integration and smarter resource consumption.

  Sure.

> > My point, if you are wondering, is that I would suspect that most
> > developers might be prone to building apps using the same framework that
> > the applications they already use, use. 
> 
> i don't think so... the language a developer's email app is written in rarely 
> if ever has an impact on their choices. they may use that same language, or 
> write to the same toolkit, but rarely is it because of that app. in fact, 
> it's far more common for a developer to picks apps that match their 
> development choices  (e.g. I write apps with Qt and KDE and therefore favour 
> Qt/KDE apps)

  Well, I'm thinking about the new programmer as well as the so-called
"pointy-haired boss" that makes the decisions. If I'm a new programmer
and a lot of the software I use is GTK+ based, I'd think I'd be inclined
to write GTK+ based software too. All this goes with that integration
topic you mention above, I think.

  I'm not saying that *I* am, afterall, I've been using KDE since right
after 1.0 hit the streets... I'm just wondering about why there does
seem to be a preference for GTK in development (what the topic was
about). 

  -Tim

-- 
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Timothy R. Butler       Universal Networks      www.uninet.info
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