I should probably apologize for going off there. I went off the deep
end over yet another insistance by a GnuStep fan telling me that GnuStep
is the Cross Platform solution for Cocoa developers, because it isn't.
It's simply a small part for those unwilling to use other languages at
need.
Andrew Ruder wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 10:48:26AM -0500, Andy Satori wrote:
>> I've got a few questions and I hope they don't come across wrong. I
>> want to clarify something before I begin. Yes, I'm frustrated.
>
> Understandable; software
can be frustrating at times.
>
>> [...] Applications which use Foundation (AKA GNUstep-Base) exclusively
>> are portable to nearly any posix compliant OS, as well as Windows
>> (using Cygwin or MingW). [...]
>
> Ok, so it says GNUstep-base is portable to windows. I'm not sure how
> that applies to -gui (which the rest of this email is about).
>
>> And yet, here I am after a month of casually futzing around with various
>> revisions of the Windows installer, and the end results of those
>> installers and I have exactly one Application from the GnuStep
>> Applications page built. Of course, it wouldn't run without manually
>> building a missing dependancy, and then manually starting a program that
>> apparently all GnuStep GUI applications require before running (gdomap
>> IIRC).
>
> Cool, you found some
bugs? Did you put them on bugs.gnustep.org? As
> far as I can tell you did not. Heck, the only other email I ever see
> from you is from November complaining about this same thing. Correct me
> if I'm wrong...
>
>> For the record, that one app is Gorm, which candidly is only of use to
>> build user interfaces, and is an excellent project. ProjectBuilder,
>> ProjectCenter, GnuMail, AddressBook all however failed, all for
>> different reasons.
>
> Gorm is a pretty awesome app :). While -gui works on Windows, any
> application which ventures outside of the OpenStep/GNUstep API would
> automatically lose any portability unless the developer of said
> application took care to keep portability in mind. Once again, I'm not
> sure how this is in any way about -gui.
>
>> That clarification
page goes on to extoll the virtues of camaelon to
>> change the theme of GnuStep apps. This still doesn't make them feel
>> like normal Windows applications, WildMenu's would appear to help, but
>> since I can't get it working either, I suppose it's a moot point.
>
> I think I'm going to refer you to the bottom of the email here.
>
>> The advice I've been given in irc and email is to try CVS, so I have,
>> and things are marginally better, however, I point you to your own
>> comments again in the Clarifications page:
>
> What? You listen to people on IRC? ;) Just kidding...
>
>> "There are tested and released tar/gz packages of all GNUstep source at
>> ftp://ftp.gnustep.org/pub. It is also important to point out here that
>> getting source from CVS is not advisable for the average user. Quite
>> often there are issues with
CVS versions of projects (in general, not
>> just with GNUstep) since they are in development. There might be some
>> experimental code or some code which might not work at all, again this
>> is true with all projects, not just GNUstep. In general it is
>> recommended that end users make use of the packages provided on the ftp
>> site, which are considered to be official releases. These are generally
>> better tested and more stable than what might be in CVS at any given
>> point in time."
>
> Do you really think the official stance could possibly be to use CVS?
> In general, it is nearly impossible to suggest CVS as an advisable
> option because at any given time the CVS could be horribly broken. If
> people on IRC suggested CVS (which I'm sure they did) it was probably
> only due to the fact that they were using CVS and could assert that it
> was in
a buildable/usable condition at that *particular* time.
>
>> So which advice should a user or potential user follow? I shall not
>> point out that Item 7 on that same page then goes on to explain that
>> older versions from CVS were the issue. When the current "stable"
>> version don't build, and the CVS tree is the only potentially viable
>> option, and when those build, but don't actually work, what conclusions
>> do you really expect?.
>
> bugs.gnustep.org bugs.gnustep.org bugs.gnustep.org? If you had build
> problems on the stable release, there would undoubtedly have been
> someone that could have helped you.
>
>> Now, all of this said, I will grant that things are better, under
>> Linux. I did get more things built on the Suse 9 box, though, that
>> was Ok gentlemen, without icons in most
applications, and having to
>> make some other manual modifications to the system to get GnuStep apps
>> to properly register themselves.
>
> I have used GNUstep on several distros without these problems. But once
> again, bugs.gnustep.org, only a quick surf away...
>
>> In short, I simply do not see how GnuStep, in it's current state, is
>> usable for anyone but the most hard core, die hard users.
>
> As pointed out above, GNUstep *is* used in commercial applications
> successfully.
>
>> Windows users are deemed to be clueless gits that aren't worth the time
>> nor effort.
>
> Wrong. Here's why open source developers don't support windows: no
> open source developers use it. Now, that is a rather broad statement,
> but I'm pretty sure that most of the Windows work on GNUstep is done by
> people who
would otherwise be using a unix-like environment. So until
> these supposed "windows developers" start showing up and submitting bugs
> and fixing things, things will continue plodding along at there
> continuous but somewhat slow pace towards things working.
>
>> Perhaps I'm wrong, but right now, I don't feel like I'm wrong, please
>> sell me on why I should reevaluate my position, and convince my
>> company that GnuStep isn't a dead end.
>
> Why should *we* convince *your company* that GNUstep isn't a dead end.
> Believe it or not, nobody (as far as I know) is making money directly
> off of working on GNUstep (some are indirectly, I know). Believe it or
> not, people have to put all this code together; it doesn't just pop out
> of thin air. We all have jobs, we all have other things to do, we all
> have other interests, and while I do not
directly contribute to GNUstep
> most of the time, I understand all of this. If something is broke,
> submit a bug, fix it yourself, or continue waiting for it to be fixed,
> but ranting and complaining isn't going to get you anywhere.
>
> I swear, half the world thinks that open source software grows on a tree
> somewhere in East Africa.
>
> Just as frustrated,
> Andy
>
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