A common VFS and a Common conf-system [Part II]

[Philip Van Hoof]

On Tue, 2005-03-01 at 19:32 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-03-01 at 10:48 -0500, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> So the library will have to put such callbacks as events on the
> g_main_loop.. (g_idle_add).

But, I'm guessing DBUS can already do this with it's events? I haven't
professionally used DBUS (because it's documentation is missing) so I'm
not very sure how these events work.


> In fact migrating from, for example, gnome-vfs to this new system should
> be a matter of search and replace if you really want it to become
> widespread and actually used. Else most applications will simply stick
> to gnome-vfs for many years to come.

Which is btw. why I think this needs to become a multi-layered thing.
One layer is lower than the other layer. Much like Gdk+ and Gtk+. It
looks like the Kio-stuff is more highlevel (just like Python is more
highlevel than C) than the gnome-vfs which has posix-style semantics.

With a single layer: Or you'll make it simple for GNOME applications to
migrate to this new system. Or you'll make it simple for KDE
applications. It's understandable that the group which has most work
with it will dislike the new system.

Therefor I think this needs two layers who know about and work with each
other. One layer will make it easy to migrate GNOME applications, and
another layer will make it easy to migrate KDE applications.

While you do inform developers about the preferred layer.

Much like how GConf got introduced. It's still possible to create an
application that writes it's configuration data in .dotfiles. But the
preferred method is by using an event-based configuration-registry
(GConf) and instant applying of preferences (because it's event-based).

And then after many years maybe all those applications are using the
same higher layer. I don't think it's doable to force every developer to
migrate. You'll have to make them want to migrate. You'll need to throw
candies if they do and stuff like that.



-- 
Philip Van Hoof, Software Developer @ Cronos
home: me at freax dot org
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