Re: ObjC documentation

[Chris B. Vetter]

On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 19:57:57 -0400
Ritesh Kumar <ritesh.removethis@cs.unc.edu> wrote:
> So perhaps one of the easiest ways to go for it would be to make a
> "theme adaptor" in GNUStep (I don't know how far that is possible) for
> GTK and QT themes. I think QT would be a problem as it would cause C++
> to come into the picture but GTK should be fine. If some user does
> want to have a different UI why not give it to them? The people who

If people want a different *UI* they will use KDE or GNOME. A different
theme doesn't make a different UI. After all, the UI defines look AND
feel.

Apart from that, fixing the current state of GNUstep, ie. missing and
incomplete classes and/or broken methods, IMHO is a more pressing issue
than eye-candy.

> are more willing to go with the NEXTStep interface for usability
> issues would remain with NEXTStep(this might also finally turn out to
> be the case for the users who initially came to GNUStep because of it
> looks). The only reason why I say so is so that GNUStep gets wider
> recognition. After all simple window managers like E , just because of
> their looks, get a lot of attention. Even after a lot of search I was

I wouldn't call E a _simple_ window manager. E gets a lot of attention
because of its aesthetic value, and the high level of shall we say
programming style.

> not able to find even one working Linux+GNUStep distribution.

Because there is none. You need to look at GNUstep as to what GNOME and
KDE used to be a few years ago. Back then, those two also were more like
add-ons, goodies thrown in, as people were still using Motif or Athena
for programming in X11. Nowadays you have whole distributions based on
either one, and _maybe_ someday you will find one based on GNUstep as
well.

> SimpleGNUStep seems to be the only one active but they don't have any
> files for download. I am currently using GNUStep on my Gentoo but even
> there I have still not been able to install GWorkspace. In fact I am
> probably only using WindowMaker.

... which, as Christopher pointed out isn't really related to GNUstep at
all. It used to be though, but it's slowly moving away.

> The moment GNUStep has a userbase, it would encourage people to
> publicize whatever they feel about Obj-C which I think is very
> crucial. Plus it would cause more "demand" for applications
> integrating with the GNUStep Framework. I would really love to see and
> work on a completely self contained GNUStep distribution.

GNUstep will have its user-base once some of the more pressing issues
are resolved, and people start to realize that they can use GNUstep to
port to and from OSX... And people are slowly catching on.
That will help acceptance, not necessarily eye-candy.

-- 
Chris