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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: Thoughts of a KDE sceptic
From:       George Russell <george.russell () clara ! net>
Date:       1999-11-16 18:38:02
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On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, tim@maths.tcd.ie wrote:
> I realise I must be in a small minority,
> but I think the idea of re-inventing every application
> for KDE (and again for GNOME) is misconceived.

Having used X11 prior to KDE / Gnome, I disagree. As an enduser, X11 is /was
horrible.

> Let me take xdvi/kdvi as an example.
> Xdvi has been developed over many years,
> and is a highly sophisticated DVI viewer.
> The author, Paul Vojta, follows comp.text.tex
> (the appropriate newsgroup for TeX/LaTeX questions),
> answers queries about xdvi,
> and corrects such bugs as are pointed out to him.

The interface to xdvi is not, imho, the best or easiest. File dialogs are a
nasty point.

> It is simply misguided in my view
> to try to write a rival program.
> It will not be used by the vast majority of TeXies,
> even those running KDE;

User split - I will not be using xdvi, am in no way a TeXie (I might use LyX on
occasion, thats as close as I'll get), I want an easy tool to view another
inconvient file format for documentation etc ( dvi in this case)

The vast majority of those running KDE are not texies, so when we stumble
across a dvi file, we'll use the KDE tool to view it (why install the other
one?)

> and if people do run it and meet problems --
> as has in fact happened --
> their queries on comp.text.tex will not be answered.

how many people using kdvi will go moan on the newsgroups - file a bug report
at the KDE web site

> This is just one example;
> there are many others.
> I do not want to use a rival Java compiler to the official javac

A non Sun javac for Java 1.2  would be used by *me* like a shot. Javac is
slow...

> or a PDF viewer in place of acroread,

Acrobat is a bloated, buggy, and big using Motif, and v 4 lacks some features of
3. If another pdf program reads all the files , I will use it instead.

> simply because I do not believe
> they could possibly be as good.

Try both, as an end user.  The older the GUI tool on Unix, the more endusers
will hate it.

> It would seem to me a much better use
> of the undoubted talent of KDE developpers
> would be to improve the "wrapping" for non-KDE programs,
> to allow them to use KDE features.

Not always practical, I suspect.

George Russell
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