Mail Archives: geda-user/2015/09/05/19:36:02
On Sat, Sep 5, 2015 at 9:39 PM, Vladimir Zhbanov (vzhbanov AT gmail DOT com)
[via geda-user AT delorie DOT com] <geda-user AT delorie DOT com> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 05, 2015 at 05:07:54PM -0400, DJ Delorie wrote:
>>
>> > It's just an opinion. Tastes may vary.
>>
>> Sure, you can always find a few exceptions to any generalization. But
>> KiCAD's community is growing, they're attracting big projects, and
>> people tend to try them first because they're the better-known name.
>> gEDA used to be that, but now we're the has-beens. Our community is
>> shrinking, we're losing devs, etc.
>>
>> Can we change? Sure, if we really want to, and figure out how.
>>
>> Can we retake the #1 spot? I see no technical reason why not, if the
>> people can work together to address all the reasons why we're not #1.
>>
>> But at the moment, unless we drastically change how we do things,
>> KiCAD is #1.
>
> Over and over again...
>
> Does this mean we should replace Guile with Python?
> (Emacs Lisp with Vim scripts?, LaTeX coding with LibreOffice widgets?
> systemv with systemd etc. etc.)
>
>
> Citate from http://twistedmatrix.com/users/glyph/rant/extendit.html:
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Access from multiple scripting languages is not a good idea.
>
> In an article I posted to advogato, I described my position on this in
> more detail, but the gist is that it is extremely difficult to design an
> interface which makes sense and helps people be productive in one
> language. Doing it several times over is a fantastic challenge with
> little benefit - in fact, the effort may backfire.
>
> Consider that, if you maintain multiple scripting interfaces, your
> application will develop a ragged community of customization fans, who
> will regularly argue about what language to use to extend your software.
> If you support Perl, Ruby, Python, and Scheme, you will certainly find
> Python and Perl fans who are using your application constantly at each
> others' throats, re-implementing the same 'script' functionality 8 or 9
> times, and generally wasting time that could be better spent enhancing
> their plug-in packages.
Yes it is wasted effort but who cares? I would rather have people
coding their own *never* to be included stuff than fight endlessly on
the email list.
> If you support only one scripting language, but you support it well,
> then you will create a simple environment into which contributors may
> put enhancements, and you will facilitate sharing and understanding
> between those contributors. Focusing on a single language and supporting
> it well will almost certainly result in more general-use code getting
> written for your particular app than in a multi-language scenario.
> (x-chat's scripting subsystem is a case in point.)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's just what's happening now in the project. Exactly one developer
> (Roland) works on its python branch and has a support of some users in
> the list who always keep repeating 'guile is wrong'. How will this
> encourage any dev like me who've invested their time on learning current
> gschem internals and Scheme in order to try to make things better?
You have my agreement until you get to scheme. Irrespective of
technical attracting new developers is harder when you are using a
language that is itself falling in popularity. It is just another
barrier to entry for new contributors. Most people already know C
almost no one comes to this project already knowing scheme.
Even John Dotty seemed to agree that we need an alternative to scheme.
> OK, I see the message. Get out, stupid ancient fools, your time is
> out ;) The new generation is coming...
For quite a while there the message the developers were sending was...
Stay away you newcomers, we know the user base wants this but they
don't understand the tool as well as we do. The users are a collection
of
Igor2 started this fork because people were unwilling to accept his
contributions. Looking back the same people drove me out too. Lets not
start that again.
> Cheers,
> Vladimir
--
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Work
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