I never really used linux (probably will in the future) but
my first reaction is 'cool - there are lots of thread asking
for which dev-IDE for linux and it's commonly agreed that the
msvc ide is pretty good...
so I have to say the reaction you had is strange, at the least.

(and MS never did give the source to their IDE now, did they?)

Quote: Original post by CoffeeMug

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
Part of what Linus does is ration out such accolades and placate the competitors, which is great leadership (of a rabble of barbarians, admittedly, but... [smile])

I suppose different people define leadership differently [smile] What Linus needs to do is recognize that an OS is more than just the kernel.

Yes, but Linus is only working on the kernel part.. not the whole OS. That has mostly been GNU territory.

Quote:
He needs to shift from open source to open design and initiate public discussions of API standards where they're needed. Linux GUI API 1.0, Linux Clipboard API 1.0, etc. Different implementors would then conform to these APIs which would allow for perfect interoperation and ease of development. People could then introduce extensions and popular/necessary ones would be incorporated into official API standards after review and redesign. This is what Linux needs. This would be leadership. What Linus is doing now is essentially worthless as good kernels are a dime a dozen (all the linux variants, all the bsds, darwin, etc.) Success of Linux has nothing to do with Linus for a long time already. It's mostly hype, all the various software that makes up an OS that's portable to other unix variants and that Linus has nothing to do with, and hard work of distribution maintainers.

Umm, the graphical GUI system has nothing to do with the Kernel linus is working on. A GNU/Linux operating system is built on top of multiple different layers. Torvalds is just working on the kernel. He isn't responsible on other aspects of the OS.

For example, the graphics system is XFree (or X.org) and on top of that there are different desktop enviroments (KDE, GNOME, IceWM, Fluxbox). QT and GTK are already the standard GUI APIs (atleast IMO). I think they could be considered be a bit similiar like using .NET Forms, MFC or just the pure Win32 API (that would probably be like using the X API) on Windows.

Ok, this is really offtopic and I'm not sure I'm making any sense ;)

P.S. I'm curious if have you used GNU/Linux or coded on GNU/Linux?

EDIT: Seems like C-Junkie was faster than me! Grr! [smile]

Crap, I just killed the entire GTK core when trying to patch a few core libraries. Argh. About to reinstall gnome...

Here is a shot of the IDE from monday. More to follow for the weekend, well, if we manage to get this stupid GtkCellRendererCombo to work. Also, parsing gcc error output is the pure horror, WTF did they never introduced standarized error and warning codes ?

Screenshot

Quote: Original post by CoffeeMug
I suppose different people define leadership differently [smile]

The definition is a function of the community being lead.

Now, as for your opinions on what Linus needs to do, to be honest, he's not qualified to spearhead such discussions from a technical point of view. That said, his "celebrity" and aforementioned leadership ability would be useful in that non-rational quagmire that is the loosely-defined entity known as "the Linux community."

From my observations and participation on the periphery, the Linux community prefers emergent technologies to well-designed, well-planned interoperable components. They prefer loose coupling and over-genericized interfaces (see X-Windows), even if there is a slight performance penalty, because they allow for the greatest range of end user applications. This all ties into the almost mythical fear of "lock-in," which we have previously debunked as FUD. But it's real to them, and, given that, I've given up on Linux as a productive environment for my purposes. It's great when I need to cobble together fairly arbitrary and patchwork systems, even for production purposes, but it doesn't meet my prosumer needs.

[Please, no one chime in trying to convince me that it does meet my needs with counterexamples of how others are using it. They're not me. Maybe they can put up with ugly - which is subjective. I can't, among other considerations.]

All that said, CoffeeMug, take a look at the work being done at freedesktop.org.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Screenshot

Looking good!

Quote: Original post by _the_phantom_

Quote: Original post by CoffeeMug

Quote: Original post by C-Junkie
The nicest way I can say this is: You're full of shit.

I'm pretty sure that vast majority of the people on this board that tried linux would agree with me on this point. Linux gui is nowhere near the quality of mac and windows. Why insult me for stating the obvious?

I have to agree with CoffeeMug on this, I've used linux on and off (well, more off than on) since around 1998 and the thing which has always turned me off about it was the way the GUI reacted. Dont get me wrong, the more recent version of Gnome was much nicer but the fact that MS have spent a LOT of money working on the UI still shows and gives it its edge. Its annoying that I cant put my finger on just what it is but there is something 'off' about linux GUIs *shrugs*

I've only used Apple computers for a small amount of time but they easily have the highest quality GUI around. However, I'd say Windows is way below Apple and Linux in terms of a good desktop environment.

Here's a screenshot of my KDE desktop with Suse 9.2 which I haven't done any major hacking with:


Those are just some of the applications that you get with KDE that are all consistent with each other in terms of look and feel. You should be able to see a MSN messenger style program, a movie player, a PDF viewer, a tabbed webbrowser/filebrowser with a split pane and a jukebox. They act how they look like they should act. It's setup in a very similar way to Windows. What do you mean "the thing which has always turned me off about it was the way the GUI reacted"? Click the play button and the movie plays, click the zoom button and the document zooms in. Yes, there are bad applications out there, but KDE is just as good, and I would say better, than Windows.

You can customise all the toolbars, set keyboard shortcuts to any menu commands, set the behaviour of the GUI to your liking (e.g. double-click a titlebar to maximize/shade/minimise), use Apple style menu bars, use multiple desktops, windows border snapping, setting any window to fullscreen/on-top/below etc. There's just so many small things that add up to make the GUI better. KDE also has excellent features like kio-slaves (you can treat networked computers, ftp/ssh/web accessing etc. as if they were local and edit/save files with network/protocol transparency) and kparts (all KDE applications can be easily embedded, such as embedding the PDF viewer or the movie player in the browser window).

Do you have any specific reasons what is wrong with the major desktop environments? I agree it gets horrible when you start mixing loads of different application types together, but it's the same with Windows. If you stick to just using Gnome or KDE you'll find they are splendid environments to work in.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Crap, I just killed the entire GTK core when trying to patch a few core libraries. Argh. About to reinstall gnome...

Here is a shot of the IDE from monday. More to follow for the weekend, well, if we manage to get this stupid GtkCellRendererCombo to work. Also, parsing gcc error output is the pure horror, WTF did they never introduced standarized error and warning codes ?

Screenshot

Looks nice. Clean and simple. Can your IDE yet list for example all of an object's member functions when using a . or -> operator (like in, for example, kdevelop).

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
the Linux community prefers emergent technologies to well-designed, well-planned interoperable components.

A bit of background. I took an "innovation studies" class just this last semester, where we discussed various topics relating to the development of the human race. One of the professor's biggest points was that the rate of change is already too fast for some people, and only shows signs of getting even faster and faster. He started talking about "chaordic management," or how to manage change that occurs so fast it appears to be complete chaos.

I realized he was describing the open source development process. He didn't realize it, because he's not a computer person, so he's never been exposed to it, but the ideas were the same.

Anyway, my point is this: You might think this is bad, but I think it's not, and that it's the way of the future.

Quote: They prefer loose coupling and over-genericized interfaces (see X-Windows)

I used to think X was bad, too. Until I started figuring out exactly what was wrong with it.

There are a few design flaws, but they're most definately not what you think they are. (For the curious, it has to do with an outdated hardware acceleration infrastructure. It used to also have to do with the protocol, but the RENDER extension fixed that)

Quote: Original post by Yann L
So, does anyone in here know a place on the net, where one can present closed source development related Linux software for constructive input, in a somewhat smaller context, without having to fear the Slashdot and GPL mob ? Something like GDNet, but for Linux would be perfect :)

I think that building a little website with a little forum in it would work perfectly. It did for the guy who made MinGW Studio. His forums had a nice amount of activity. MinGW Studio is also closed source, and little of the people who posted there was complaining about that. Sadly, the project is dead and the website is down. There is a mirror here

BTW, you IDE looks hot.

I stopped reading the garbage at page 3.

When I start my next project, it will likely be OGL, maybe with SDL too. This is because I think its a 'nice thing to do', that being the cross platform thing. But anyway, I too was programing in Linux with x/emacs, vi, and some others. Now I have really gotten comfortable with MSVS IDE, I don't want to use emacs or vi anymore. I know its ub3r l33t to have every function and every member and everything thats private and derived just burned into memory, that I should know all of these. Well, I can't imagine trying to develop a game without the class view, and the intelli sence.

So I don't use the Linux OS as much as I have in the past, but I'm okay with that, everyone already mentioned all the points I could make about whys. But I do want a good IDE, because if I ever do get a project cross-platform, I want to be comfortable in both IDEs. And as page 1 says, forget the nay-sayers! Make it, make sure you like it, other people will like it too I'm sure. And I'm the perfect candidate for the "Windows->Linux developer transition" target, so I too am interisted in this project.

Oh and, I think I was looking for good CAD/3d modeling software when I used Linux, all the good ones (that I found) were closed source. So in the end, thats really the least important thing to consider about an app. If a user, really needs the source then its probabally to compile for their <exotic> distro. I think thats why people have builds for different *nix OSs usually avail to DL at same place as source, right?

Uh, I think my point was: good job, keep it up, and let me try it. :)