Re: Cairo as common graphics context

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 16 Mar 2006, at 08:37, Stefan Urbanek wrote:

> Adam,
>
> On 15/03/06, Adam Fedor <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On 2006-03-15 07:53:12 -0700 Stefan Urbanek <address@hidden>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > >  From naive point of view the steps necessary would be:
> > > 1. create API for picking graphics context with prefered destination
> > > 2. pick ONE graphics library as preffered graphics context library
> > > and move
> > > it's
> > > use (or use of a bundle) into GUI
> > > 3. update GUI to use graphics context provided by the graphics  
> > > library
> >
> > I'm sure you can do that. But then you are requiring more  
> > dependancies
> > (particulaly in the GUI, which is not where we want it). Since both
> > cairo and art can draw into a bitmap, it would probably be better  
> > just
> > to define an interface between the GUI and back to allow that, then
> > the particular backend would be responsible for doing the work.
>
> No, I can't. See below.
>
> > > Looks like all necessary code is already in GNUstep, it is just a
> > > matter of
> > > "rewiring" it. But well ... I do not see much into the internals...
> >
> > Oh yes, actually doing the work - well that's the hard part :-)
>
> Excuse me, but I take this from you as a little offence with the
> meaning:"do not talk, just code". Following text is not going to be
> only about the issue, but about general attitude on this list. This
> attitude is repeating on this list again and again...

It appears to me that you are reading into Adam's comments a lot that  
isn't there.  Certainly I didn't take from  it anything like the same  
thing that you did.

His use of 'you'  looks like the colloquial usage equivalent to the  
old fashioned use of 'one' as a pronoun, and probably didn't mean/ 
imply anything about your personal programming skills, but even if it  
did, that would just seem to say that he assumed you were a  
programmer ... which is not unreasonable on a developer mailing  
list.  In fact it just looks like a simple response to a technical  
enquiry in which he suggests a possibly better way of achieving the  
desired result.

As for the 'well that's the hard part' (with smiley) ... I read that  
as saying that 'just' rewiring could well be a misleading description  
of the work involved, and an implicit invitation for you to volunteer  
to do it.

All in all, utterly appropriate to a developers mailing list.
It doesn't in any way imply that contributions/inputs are not  
appreciated... you just need to bear in mind the context of the list  
you are using.

> p.p.s.:Moreover, this year I have not seen any relevant answer to
> project-crucial questions I have posted to the list. The only response
> was from Alex Perez, who just broght the questions to the light again.

I don't recall seeing any others this year ... apart perhaps from  
your 'GNUstep Cocoa compatibility' posting ... which I didn't  
immediately reply to because I didn't (don't) really understand the  
diagram.