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

[Sean Middleditch]

On Tue, 2005-03-01 at 19:46 +0100, Philip Van Hoof wrote:

>> 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.

No, it will not in any way be a search and replace for gnome-vfs.  If
that was the case, why would we bother writing a new system?  The reason
for a new system is that the existing ones are not only broken, but in
fact completely broken in their design.  This isn't just a new library
of code, it's an entire new API and design.

>
>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.

Additional layers are something I expect.  I don't think normal
application developers will be mucking with, for example, hooking D-VFS
up to the glib or Qt main loops, no more than one does with D-BUS.  A
wrapper library, or even just integrated support with glib/Qt, would
hide all those details from the application author.  Only developers
that write their own main loops (nearly unheard of these days) would
handle that stuff.


>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.

Getting people to migrate from gnome-vfs will be easy, since the number
of apps that use it are pretty small - it sucks incredibly hard, and
even most core GNOME apps don't support it, or don't support it
completely.  Broken by design, like I said.  KIO converts *might* be
difficult; but then, if we're lucky, it'll be possible to just move KIO
over to D-VFS, and application authors won't even need a recompile to
use the new system.  That's a ways off, though - D-VFS actually has to
be written first.  ;-)

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-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis at awesomeplay.com>