[lug] Re: recycling code [WAS Fwd: NICHOLAS PETRELEY: "The Op en Source" ]

[Holshouser, David]

I want to change angle just a tad on this, back toward the entry point.

The biggest thing that gets me, and part of the starting point for this 
whole thread, is that Gnome and Gnome apps are VERY immature. 

I would like to extend this to KDE. I personally feel the KDE apps 
are still very immature compared to (I know I may get tracked down 
and physically burnt for this but I must) the MS GUI (not the kernel, not
necessarily the object model, definitely not the code, just the MS window
manager) and the apps written for windows. 

The time and effort spent on creating slightly varied copies of apps. 
The time spent on rewritting the whole app, comes in to play on this. 
People are spending so much time getting their own ideas to print that 
the overall output of apps is broad but shallow. Again, we are talking 
about the GUI, not the kernel, not the development process. I'm just 
saying that I have 200 mail readers to choose from that are all in version 
0.9 states. It hurts and drives [(boss)|(parents)|(kids)|(joe sixpack)] away

because of (get this) a perceived lack a stability in Linux.

> Where KDE has features and integration, and is rapidly approaching 
> "ready for prime time" status, I see Gnome foundering.  Why?  App bloat.  
> Everyone and his borther is putting out apps, and designs...  But they
> aren't 
> getting finished.  Scratching an itch, writing a Gnome mailer in Perl
> because 
> of the hack value, this is all good and well...  But the 'user
> friendliness' 
> of Gnome has suffered -- I find apps that are somewhat unstable (I
> averaged a 
> crash with Balsa about 3 times a day.  Not catastrophic, no data loss,
> just 
> forcing me to reload the app), don't have massive chunks of functionality 
> (the multiple personality thing still isn't in the massively released
> code, 
> and the KDE functionality works better), and just seems somewhat
> 'unpolished'.
> 
> 
> 
> The Gnome UI still feels 'kludgy', and has some rendering glitches.  It's 
> still a major "developmer's platform".  This isn't a bad thing, because
> the 
> people who use it will fix bugs that annoy them. Gnome doesn't feel like
> it's 
> progressing as fast as KDE did in the same stage.  There's lots of apps
> still 
> in the 0.x stage in the code...  And Gnome is trying to push v2.0 out the 
> door.  The backend framework is there, but the USABLE apps that 
> [(boss)|(parents)|(kids)|(joe sixpack)] can use JUST ISN'T there.  
> Admittedly, with KDE, the entry barrier that you encounter with Unix 
> (multi-user over single, different concepts, etc) is still there...  But 
> still, I find KDE much easier to use and more friendly, especially when 
> looking at it more from a novice perspective.
> 
>