grip being removed [Re: rawhide report: 20050120 changes]

[Jeff Spaleta]

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:33:31 -0700, Tyler Larson
<fedora-devel at tlarson.com> wrote:
> Jamie has a point, you know. Albeit cleverly disguised amidst the sarcasm.

calling bmp half-working is a bit over the top.  The question has
never been is this a perfect replacement.. the question has been is it
good enough.  I don't feel the objections raised so far are
significant barriers to replacing xmms.  You are free to disagree with
me ( until my army of demonic minions steal your soul and rid you of
your pesky free will) but I don't think its particularly rational to
expect a perfect replacement of any piece of software when the
discussion turns to wholesale replacement. Replacements will have
their own strengths and weaknesses that need to be compared.
> 
> Progress for progress' sake is an absurd motivation. 

No one is arguing that.  Progress is a messy non-linear business...
trade-offs are made among a a number of factors.. 2 steps forward ...1
step back..

> That is, replacing
> an app with a functionally inferior one just because it uses old
> libraries isn't sensible. If you replace an app, the new one should be
> *better* than the old one. 

are you saying that gtk2 doesnt have improvements over gtk1?
2 steps forward... 1 step back.  If you are looking for monotonic
forward progress on ALL aspects ALL the time.. i envy your idealism
however naive it is.

>The goal isn't to make new programs better,
> it's to use the best programs.

Is it? I'm not particular sure that is THE goal at all. I think there
are a number of competing goals which demand compromise and
trade-offs.   Everything has an opportunity cost.. the 'best' program
2 years from now may not be the 'best' program today.... and its an
absolute WASTE of effort to continue to focus testing manhours through
test-releases of core on an application that is a dead-end.  If bmp is
close enough, and it has a development future that appears to provide
better integrations and features into the distributions long term...
then its worth considering.. even though its not a perfect replacement
for xmms.  I think its close enough to be a replacement and that its
gtk2 provides inherent benefit. Feel free to disagree.

> Any decision that meets one of these lesser goals (like shrinking the
> distro size) but still runs contrary to the more important principle of
> improving the user experience is a bad decision to make. Don't destroy
> the forest to save a tree.

A decisions that has a significant and lasting long term benefit can
cause short term negative impact.  2 steps forward.. and 1 step back..
is still progress.

-jef"doing the progress cha-cha"spaleta