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List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] Sayonara Quanta comrades!
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-05-31 22:02:29
Message-ID: 200505311605.49866.sequitur () kde ! org
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Hi Sean,

On Tuesday 31 May 2005 06:14, sean@datafly.net wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I've been hanging around this list for the past year or two -- long
> enough to have had the occasional heated (but civil) debate with Eric
> our stoic leader.

And to think all I recall is pleasant conversations. ;-)
>
> But alas, I'm sorry to say that through no fault of Quanta's, I've
> simply had enough of KDE's UI (way way WAY too cluttered for my taste)

I've often thought that was a red herring as they can be so configured, and 
often are. Aside from being configurable many distributions heavily revise 
the desktop. With additional tools like kicker replacements it can be very 
diverse. Also with Kiosk it can be made ultra spartan and even locked down. 
Of course it can take some effort but at least now there are interfaces for 
that. For me the fact that I can easily configure whatever I want is critical 
as I will use that configuration for years and only spend a little time 
setting it up.

The only weak spot I see is that the object oriented benefits of KParts do 
have a limited downside in winding up with discrete configurations that can 
be a little confusing, but everything takes time.

> and I'm defecting to another desktop environment and along with it,
> another web development editor -- don't worry Eric, it's not the "fishy"
> one.

All I can say is you will be back. ;-) What is particularly appealing about 
Quanta has to do with the benefits of architecture, innovation and the 
efficiency of the interface. Track your efficiency over time and see what I 
mean. My focus has always been based in my experience in the pressure cooker 
of contract web development. The only competitive tools would either have 
greater interface issues, Java requirements or be commercial programs, one of 
which I can think of is much bigger than the KDE libraries. (Java is no small 
library either) So as I say, you will miss Quanta. ;-)
>
> I wish you all the very best and just wanted to extend a very heartfelt
> thanks to Eric and Andras and all the other contributors for a truly
> best of breed web development app.

Thanks. It does mean a lot from you.
>
> If I could only learn to tolerate KDE's approach to UI -- or if I could
> just live with 40 thousand pounds of KDE libs running on top of another
> DE, I would happily go on using Quanta forever.

We have lots of people using Quanta on other desktops. We have kept the 
requirements for the base operation to only kdelibs and enhanced operation to 
adding kdesdk. Most distros include this by default and most distributions 
can manage the simple dependencies very easily. In fact if you're building 
from source KDE definitely the easiest full fledged desktop. I find it 
difficult to imagine the libs creating much of a problem without a less than 
satisfactory distribution support, but I'll have to take your word for it.
>
> Anyway thanks for the good times!  Maybe I'll come snooping around again
> when KDE/Quanta 4.0 rolls out.

I'm sure you will want to. As you probably know, I've never been satisfied 
with just being a good open source project. By KDE 4 we hope to have a number 
of things done including the ability to use KDevelop plugins. This will mean 
enhanced support for Java and Javascript, class browsers and a lot more. In 
addition to that we are working on dramtically improving VPL to integrate 
XSLT development and limited visual PHP. Team development will be greatly 
improved. Right now we're working on annotation and also making these 
integrate with message capability targetting the applicable team members. My 
biggest project is to bring forward an intelligent object template feature 
that can allow components of a file to mediate interactions by user defined 
rules. That will substantially impact repetitive development work.

What you might be most interested in is the personality features that can tie 
into project areas and roles to allow defined limitations to what is 
presented in the interface. This would allow a user to "configure out" 
features they don't plan to use or create custom context related interfaces 
for team members.

As I see it most tool development is focused on simply how the tool does the 
traditional things it is expected to and how to improve on those traditional 
approaches. Allowing design to be bound this way misses the factors of how 
project design,  workflow, interaction and incidental factors impact work. 
While a desire to be monolithic for the sake of being monolithic (think 
Netscape wanting to make a replacement desktop) just creates bloat, there are 
a number of things that cannot be done as well separately as they can be 
integrated. My objective is not to produce a tool, but an extention of how 
you work that integrally morphs into a perfect fit.

You owe it to yourself to see our next step with 4.0. Over the course of the 
3x development we have never had enough time to fully realize some of our 
more substantial objectives. My only regret would be to miss your feedback in 
the process of getting from here to there.
>
> Yoroshiku!
>
> Sean
Happy trails... until we meet again. ;-)
-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
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