D Binding to GUI libraries

[Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)]

On 10/21/18 1:13 PM, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Sun, 2018-10-21 at 04:15 -0400, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) via
> Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> […]
>>
>> That's pure nonsense: It's Linux - unless one option actually goes
>> away
>> (KDE is still actively used and developed), then there's no such
>> thing
>> as one "winning" over the other.
> 
> Hardly nonsense. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora all prefer GNOME over KDE, so
> GTK+ over Qt.

First of all, minor nitpick: Unless some bombshell news occurred that I 
managed to miss, Ubuntu pushes their own Unity, NOT Gnome. Yes, that's 
still GTK, but still...accuracy...FWIW.

But more importantly, "prefer" is vague a weasel word in this situation. 
The claim is that the distros "prefer" GTK over Qt. The *reality* is far 
more simple: The installers for the distros give you a choice between 
Gnome, KDE and (on Ubuntu) Unity, and Gnome/Unity just happen to often 
be the default. That's the *only* thing that "prefer" means in this 
context, so let's call a spade a spade: It's a common installer default. 
That's all.

Furthermore, regardless of what distro you've installed, KDE can always 
be installed and used. And (unless things have changes since last I 
looked) every single one of the distros you mention maintain the full 
set of KDE packages in their repositories.

So yes, saying that GTK "won" over Qt is hyperbolic nonsense. Does it 
have a slight dominance WRT Linux DE's? Yes. Unfortunately. But that's 
like claiming a victor between iOS and Android: BOTH still have 
significant user-bases. BOTH are still actively developed with no end 
even remotely in sight. BOTH are still relevant and will remain so for 
the foreseeable future. So long as they both coexist (and the GNU/Linux 
ecosystem actively promotes coexistence of competitors - which it does), 
any claim of a victor, or of one competitor "winning" over another, IS, 
yes, hyperbolic nonsense.

Plus, as others have said, industry tends to take Qt more seriously than 
GTK anyway. So once again, hyperbolic nonsense to claim GTK "won".

> 
> People coming from Windows or macOS are genreally unaware of the notion
> of choice when it comes to UI. That Linux provides a choice is clearly
> alien to them. That I have chosen GNOME over KDE is a personal choice,
> but I like having the choice: I like that others can choose KDE or
> Cinnamon or whatever.
> 

I believe this is pretty much exactly my own point, too ;) Ie, 
regardless of the Win/Mac crowds unfortunate misconceptions, Linux is 
about choice, not about one option "winning" over another. Thus, for one 
competitor to defeat another in Linux, the loser would have to either 
cease to exist, or become extremely marginalized. Note that "extremely 
marginalized" is a far, far stronger notion than "not majority" or "not 
the default of the options given by the installer".

> […]
>> Programmers writing GUI apps often like GTK. Nobody else does. From
>> a
>> programmer standpoint, it may very well be nice. But that's
>> irrelevant,
>> because from the user standpoint, GTK is, and has always been, a
>> steaming pool of diarrhea, even if you ARE using GNOME/Unity.
> 
> GTK+ is fine and dandy. That you do not like it is your choice, and
> that is fine.
> 

Ditto for Qt. Which again, is a key part of my point.

But that said, out of all the people I've come across who use a 
GTK-based DE (ie, Gnome or Unity), very few of them, if any, do so 
because they like GTK apps better than Qt apps (Or the GTK-file chooser 
over the Qt file-chooser ;)). The vast majority of the time, it's simply 
because they *don't object* to Gnome/Unity and merely go along with it - 
*not* because they consider it superior to KDE, nor because they prefer 
GTK apps to Qt apps.

For that matter, out of those people I've come across who DO have a 
significant preference regarding "GTK app" vs "Qt app", the vast 
majority of people who actually care are on the "Qt UI" side. Out of the 
minority who prefer GTK apps, the majority are GTK or Gnome developers 
themselves. (BTW, Note, in ALL of this, I'm referring to GTK/Qt UI, not 
GTK/Qt API. Just to clarify.) On top of that, it's no secret that GNOME 
3 triggered an exodus of GNOME developers, and for very well-known 
reasons. But there's no such equivalent for KDE.

I have no doubt there *are* people out there who do consider 
GTK/Gnome/Unity superior to KDE/Qt, and Ihave no intention to claim that 
they are "wrong". But in my experience, such people account for a vast 
*minority* of GTK/Gnome/Unity users.

Ultimately, everything points to the same thing: Those who actually CARE 
about GTK/Gnome/Unity vs Qt/KDE, typically prefer Qt/KDE. The rest are 
just swing votes.

As for the distros choice of "which do we make default?", that's really 
no surprise and implies nothing significant: The tech industry's current 
runway-fashion wind direction is clearly "The user should adapt to the 
software", not the other way around. Thus fully explains GTK/GNOME/Unity 
as the gatekeepers' current suggestions. Just like Win/Mac: "Actual user 
opinions: not relevant."