Why is gnome better? RE: [Sussex] Promoting SLUG

[Geoff Teale]

John D. wrote:

>A sort of visual interoperability perhap's, as opposed to "branding"?
>Not sure, but if it's about how the app's work together, then that's
>something that definitely makes sense (even to a nugget like me) :)
>  
>
It's both really.   Historically there were cut and past problems 
between Qt and Gtk that were a pain in the butt, there are still some 
issues with interoperability, but freedesktop.org is eroding that 
problem.  The real thing is that users expect their settings to 
propogate across applications.  If they change the theme or the font, or 
the key bindings they expect to see those things reflected in their web 
browser, their e-mail package and their office suite.  That's why the 
weight of major apps adhearing to the GNOME way of thinking is important.

>Hum! I suppose that would have previously been a quite important factor,
>though given that people's system resources (these day's) are often more
>than adequate I'd presume that unless someone run's mission critical
>app's/system hog app's (big graphic's stuff et al), then it's something
>that has reduced as a possible problem (in general of course).
>  
>
Absolutely true...

>OO = object oriented, presumably. Heard of it, but don't have the
>knowledge to appreciate the pro's and con's - but I understand that this
>is a good thing.
>  
>

Yes, in _most_ cases OO languages are a good thing - but not everbody 
likes them and not all tasks are suited to them.  This point isn't about 
OO though, it's about Qt only being useful to developers using OO 
languages and being somewhat less enticing to the (very large number of) 
developers using C, LISP, etc.

>Perhap's it's time I learned something about Emacs then. I can bearly
>manage vi (my huge depth of knowledge about vi extend's all the way to
>:q and :wq - impressive huh! :P ). Thus far, I've tended to use either
>kwrite or nano which mean's I'll have to do more bloody reading :(
>  
>

Well, it'd be time well spent.  It's usage is more intuitive than vi, 
but getting the most out of it requires a similar investment of time and 
effort.

>Now this highlight's (well for me anyway) that linux lack's a nice,
>easily understandable glossary type app (unless someone know's
>differently).
>
>The description of KDE or Gnome as "environment's" and the rest as
>window manager's is something that I find confusing. Is there a
>difference? I don't know. I've seen various "pretty" examples of stuff
>at kde-look that seem to be using Fluxbox (apparently). But the
>differences, like most "thing's linux" is over my head.
>  
>

In this case it's simply that a Window Manager is a program that 
"manages windows" - i.e. it works out how windows should be arranged, 
moved around, placed on desktops etc..  and usually allows the user to 
move and resize the windows as well.

A "desktop environment" is a collection of programs that provide a 
complete integrated environment for applications to run in co-operation 
with each other.  GNOME and KDE offer a complete environment and toolkit 
for writing integrated applications (including  RPC mechanisms, GUI 
Toolkits, unified data storage (GConf is much like the Windows registry).

GNOME's name tells you an awful lot about it's intent.  GNU Network 
Object Model Environment.  It doesn't mention, Window, GUI or desktop once..

BTW.. there is a third one.. GNUStep
Moreover there is a forth on the way  - the next major version of 
Enlightenment is definetly and environment with a Window Manager rather 
than just a Window Manager.

-- 
Geoff