Re: [ox-en] Re: Software as society (was: Re: Documentation Standards was Re: [ox-en] UserLinux)
- From: "Niall Douglas" <s_fsfeurope2 nedprod.com>
- Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 20:20:44 -0000
On 12 Dec 2003 at 16:49, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
Therefore in order to improve the quality of software, our
principal aim must be to encourage reuse. Anything doing so is
good. Anything preventing so is bad.
Actually, a good case can be made that reuse is often _not_ a good
idea. See eg http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000007.html
That entire article applies only if you close your source. I don't
use any libraries that are closed source and I carefully evaluate any
library's source for quality before even thinking of using it.
It was for those reasons I am producing TnFOX
(http://www.nedprod.com/TnFOX/) which fills a sore need for a quality
secure robust multithreaded GUI toolkit for mission-critical
applications. TnFOX pulls together a number of different libraries,
all of which are at the top end of the quality spectrum. I don't
doubt that when finished, it will be a unique offering.
As an example, in the Freeciv project, we have consistently avoided
external dependencies and reinvented the wheel instead of throwing in
huge chunks of code from other projects. This has kept the project
highly portable, easy to compile and the source code clean. The costs
are obvious, but the cost is sometimes worth the price.
I'm very very surprised that you didn't at least use one of the many
2d graphics libraries available. They'd have let you compile for
DirectX as well as various flavours of Unix and the Amiga with just
one API. And I know they're solid code.
As for having chosen GTK, well some people seem to like it oddly
enough. While there weren't many choices five years ago, it would be
madness to choose GTK now when Qt, WxWindows and FOX all provide
superior GUI facilities never mind integrated OpenGL.
Cheers,
Niall
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