[Thunar-dev] Thunar-dev Digest, Vol 4, Issue 13

[Jasper Huijsmans]

On Tue, May 31, 2005 at 03:38:58PM -0500, Edscott Wilson Garcia wrote:
> El mar, 31-05-2005 a las 12:00 +0000, thunar-dev-request at xfce.org
> escribi?:
> 
> > Well, benny just completely eradicated your point, it seems he wants
> > to quit with it: http://xfce-diary.blogspot.com/2005/05/break.html
> > So, how to pick up from here?
> 
> After watching from the sidelines for a while, it is time to venture
> some comments in good faith. Most of the people on this list, except
> maybe Olivier and Jasper, are unfamiliar with the history of xffm. And
> those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. 
> 

We remember because we are a couple of old farts, right? ;-)

> Xffm became more and more complicated because I would please everybody
> on the developers list, and the result was that *no* developer was
> pleased. If you try to please everybody, you will please nobody.
> Read this for some milenium old wisdom (and it's fun reading too): 
> http://www.literature.org/authors/aesop/fables/chapter-281.html
> 

This is so true! The most important task for a developer/maintainer (and the
hardest) is to make a decission. Choose something and go for it. Many (most?)
people don't seem to realize this. 

> The mockups suggested on this list, whilst interesting and valuable,
> just remind me of the same situation. A lot of suggestions with an
> implied, "Hey Benny, code this for me". And thunar passed from being a
> simple filemanager to an xffm^2. No wonder Benny walked away. 
> 

Yes, although I think most people with the skills and the community standing
to support this effort (Brian, Erik, maybe even myself) seem to understand the
need to limit the goals and the functionality.

> Anyways, I believe Benny will come back when you stop complicating
> things and show some code.
> 

Well, I really don't want to speculate about benny's motives. I'm a bit
disappointed about his lack of communication, though.

> About python? I really have my doubts. Please look at the old posts for
> the "CLAW" file manager (another alternative to Xffm) which was
> programmed in python. The main complaint was that it was *too* slow.
> Being slow does not fit in with the "everything goes faster" slogan. If
> python (or whatever) was better than C, why in earth would Linus use C
> for the kernel? Just something to thing about.
> 

Agreed. What would be the advantage over nautilus if not speed and memory 
consumption? Neither would be helped by using python, IMHO.

> I don't want to run on, so I'll sum up. Thunar will not shrivel up and
> die but rather follow Benny whereever he goes, the same goes for Xffm.
> The main issue I've learnt is that people confuse the GUI-frontend with
> the actual filemanager. Complaints about Xffm have been about the
> GUI-frontend, and suggestions on how to make Thunar complicated have
> been limited to the GUI-frontend. The current development of Xffm are
> heading towards the removal of the GUI from the actual filemanager, so
> any number of GUI's would be possible for Xffm (supposing you have the
> time and skills to code, otherwise /dev/null). This will be ready by
> 4.3.3, because I will need it for the third GUI in blueprint
> ---deskview--- unless Brian puts icons on the desktop sooner. Since the
> library API is currently in the blender, you will have to dig into the
> code if you want to have a say into what the API will look like (beware
> that suggestions without attached code or patches are not taken
> seriously). If you do not want to have a say on the Xffm API, that will
> not hold development back, so you need not feel guilty ;-)
> 

One of the goals of thunar (nomad?) is to use a 'proper' from-scratch
design process and as such re-using xffm code is not immediately possible,
I think. There's no reason we can't borrow code from eachother though. Yay
open source ;-)

> Anyways, my wife is poking me in the ribs because there is nothing in
> the fridge but a couple potatoes. You can't code all the time, you
> know ;)
> 

Not even half the time, I'm afraid :( Thanks, very good post.

	Jasper