I use arch btw but I really hate the bijillion distros we have and the fact that people act like they matter, and yes I get the irony (btw).
When I first started I was really into KDE (I still like the kde effort) but the actual software was just bug ridden and weirdly out of phase aesthetically. Which is why we have other options like gnome and so on.
At the same time I feel like if the Linux community could combine their efforts instead of having dozens of developers working on the same thing with slightly different philosophies we’d be miles ahead of windows and Mac.
It’s complicated because options are good and the effort is welcome and it ultimately grows the community but I feel strongly as though when it comes to developer power and efficiency Linux is really spreading itself thin and it absolutely has to do with core philosophies differing between teams.
so, i try to build a CMake project, i know i’m going to be tearing my hair out for a day. i’ll need the reference open just to know whether pkg_check_modules(AB) is searching for library A and assigning that to variable B or vice versa. and i know that once i do get it compiling, it’ll be another day before i can get it cross compiling from my desktop to my arm chromebook or mobile phone.
so i find a similar project written in meson, where a = find_dependency(b) is immediately obvious to me, and i can make sense of the thing or even tweak it a bit without a manual, just by following the patterns. i build it first try; 80% chance it cross compiles already – 20% chance it doesn’t and i can fix that and send the fix upstream (and now 81% of meson projects cross compile).
the CMake camp: “but we all already know CMake, this new meson thing doesn’t make anything easier for us. cross compiling? that’s called QEMU.” and they’re totally right about both of those things. but that’s useless for me.
sure, it’d be nice if the GTK/KDE split (for example) didn’t lead to so much duplication of the non-GUI parts. but if you just say “no splitting” that’s the same as saying “you half go find some other hobby”. it’s really not an easy thing to sort through all the little differences and steer things such that everyone can feel at home in the same project. that’s work, and unless you’re BDFL it means a whole lot of drawn-out discussions trying to convince everyone to change their ways for someone else’s sake.
I use arch btw but I really hate the bijillion distros we have and the fact that people act like they matter, and yes I get the irony (btw).
When I first started I was really into KDE (I still like the kde effort) but the actual software was just bug ridden and weirdly out of phase aesthetically. Which is why we have other options like gnome and so on.
At the same time I feel like if the Linux community could combine their efforts instead of having dozens of developers working on the same thing with slightly different philosophies we’d be miles ahead of windows and Mac.
It’s complicated because options are good and the effort is welcome and it ultimately grows the community but I feel strongly as though when it comes to developer power and efficiency Linux is really spreading itself thin and it absolutely has to do with core philosophies differing between teams.
so, i try to build a CMake project, i know i’m going to be tearing my hair out for a day. i’ll need the reference open just to know whether
pkg_check_modules(A B)is searching for libraryAand assigning that to variableBor vice versa. and i know that once i do get it compiling, it’ll be another day before i can get it cross compiling from my desktop to my arm chromebook or mobile phone.so i find a similar project written in meson, where
a = find_dependency(b)is immediately obvious to me, and i can make sense of the thing or even tweak it a bit without a manual, just by following the patterns. i build it first try; 80% chance it cross compiles already – 20% chance it doesn’t and i can fix that and send the fix upstream (and now 81% of meson projects cross compile).the CMake camp: “but we all already know CMake, this new meson thing doesn’t make anything easier for us. cross compiling? that’s called QEMU.” and they’re totally right about both of those things. but that’s useless for me.
sure, it’d be nice if the GTK/KDE split (for example) didn’t lead to so much duplication of the non-GUI parts. but if you just say “no splitting” that’s the same as saying “you half go find some other hobby”. it’s really not an easy thing to sort through all the little differences and steer things such that everyone can feel at home in the same project. that’s work, and unless you’re BDFL it means a whole lot of drawn-out discussions trying to convince everyone to change their ways for someone else’s sake.