Re: Oh no...

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Re: Oh no...
by Me on Tuesday 13/Sep/2005, @12:11

>First, you're upset over 50 megs of disk space? Hard drives cost 50 cents per >_gigabyte_ these days. Python costs you two and a half pennies to store. Give >me your address and I'll send you a quarter, so you can store 10 copies of >Python, and stop worrying. :)

The main point was the first part of the reply but you chose to ignore it for some reason.

>Second, it's no more feasible to pick one scripting language and make it fit >everyone's preferences

No realistically, it's just about not wanting to take a decision not to hurt the feeeeeeelings of 2 or 3 people.

> than it is to pick either Gnome or KDE and make >everyone happy. You
> wouldn't like it if someone decided that Gnome was The >Linux Desktop and
> forced (somehow) everyone to stop working/using KDE, would >you?

KDE, GNOME, Linux, *BSD, [add your favorite open source project here] will never succeed if there's no standards, integration, consistency. If it's going to be eternally just bits from here and there slapped together with no coherence whatsoever, that is if everyone has their way.

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Re: Oh no...
by Dolio on Tuesday 13/Sep/2005, @16:41

> No realistically, it's just about not wanting to take a decision not to hurt the feeeeeeelings of 2 or 3 people.

No. People invent various languages because they're unsatisfied with the existing ones, and think that theirs is better. Programmers gravitate towards languages that they prefer. Until you turn everyone into mindless automatons, there will never be a single language that everyone prefers over every other, and therefore, there will always be more than one language.

It's not a decision that anyone can make or enforce. If you think otherwise, you must be living in some alternate reality that I'm not aware of.

> KDE, GNOME, Linux, *BSD, [add your favorite open source project here]
> will never succeed if there's no standards, integration, consistency.
> If it's going to be eternally just bits from here and there slapped
> together with no coherence whatsoever, that is if everyone has their way.

First of all, that's bull. Windows has just as much inconsistency, lack of integration, and lack of standards compliance as Linux, if not more. That has not prevented it from capturing and maintaining a hold on around 90% of desktop PCs.

Second, it's not as if Gnome, KDE and whoever don't work together on standards and integration when it makes sense. However, there are some things that are impossible to integrate. Qt is not GTK, and it probably never will be. As long as there are people who prefer each, they will continue to exist, and no amount of whining or philosophizing is going to change that. It's also not going to prevent Linux from making inroads on the desktop, because it doesn't really matter to most people.

People coming from Windows are used to inconsistency. They're used to using programs with 7 different widget sets, and a myriad of different user interface decisions; they can live with two on Linux if they absolutely must. Suggesting that this is a significant stumbling point of Linux in the view of the average person is laughable. Linux desktops are already much more consistent than Windows desktops, yet that fact isn't harming Windows in any significant way.

Similarly, the average person doesn't care whether their programs are written in Python, Perl, Ruby, C++ or Brainfuck (let alone what languages are required for the build system of their programs). All they care is that they work. And at 2.5 cents or less per language, they can afford to have all of those installed, so that programmers can work in whatever they find suits the task best. Suggesting we should get rid of all but one because you find it to be somehow philosophically cleaner is nonsense.

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