GNOME's Text Editor gedit 'No Longer Maintained', Needs New Developers (gnome.org) 239
AmiMoJo brings news about gedit, the default text editor for GNOME:
In a post to the gedit mailing list, Sébastien Wilmet states that gedit is no longer maintained and asks "any developer interested to take over the maintenance of gedit?" Just in case you were considering it, he warns "BTW while the gedit core is written in C (with a bit of Objective-C for Mac OS X support), some plugins are written in Vala or Python. If you take over gedit maintenance, you'll need to deal with four programming languages (without counting the build system). The Python code is not compiled, so when doing refactorings in gedit core, good luck to port all the plugins (the Python code is also less "greppable" than C). At least with Vala there is a compiler, even if I would not recommend Vala."
Sébastien's comments were surrounded by a <rant-on-languages> tag, but they're still crying out for some serious discussion. Any Slashdot readers want to share their own insights on Python, some fond thoughts on gedit, or suggestions for maintaining a great piece of open source software?
Sébastien's comments were surrounded by a <rant-on-languages> tag, but they're still crying out for some serious discussion. Any Slashdot readers want to share their own insights on Python, some fond thoughts on gedit, or suggestions for maintaining a great piece of open source software?
Use XeD (Score:2)
Use XeD [fossmint.com]. It is part of the Mint team XAPPS initiative [wikipedia.org] whose purpose is to maintain a set of basic end user desktop apps, such as text editor, image viewer, photo organizer, etc.
I believe it's all part of maintaining a consistent user experience on Mint so that nothing you're used to about your preferred desktop experience/workflow gets changed/compromised, something that I really appreciate personally!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't know if I'm ready for such bleeding edge features as:
View CVS changelogs
For now, I'll stick to RCS changelogs, thank you!
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, what is needed is yet another set of basic desktop apps based on the fork of another set of basic desktop apps based on the fork of another set of basic desktop apps. There's not enough of those. Maybe they should also have a browser and a media player.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently yes, and this gedit situation shows why such options are good.
mcedit (Score:2)
use mcedit from midnight commander instead.
Re: mcedit (Score:3)
Har. (Score:4, Insightful)
maintaining a great piece of open source software?
It was ok once upon a time. It's a UI disaster now.
Who uses it anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Patience is a virtue (Score:5, Funny)
Just wait for systemd-geditd
Re: (Score:3)
Meh, Emacs had a daemon decades ago, and a built-in OS.
Wait... Could we use Emacs as an init system too? It's got a heavyweight scripting system and even a half way usable editor.
Re:Patience is a virtue (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait... Could we use Emacs as an init system too? It's got a heavyweight scripting system and even a half way usable editor.
The short answer is yes. Even some years ago there were several pages on the practice. However, it's a dumb idea, because you need a static emacs. It's better to use sysvinit (or busybox, or whatever) for init, and just use emacs as the shell if you must.
Re: (Score:2)
Why does it neet to be static? I can boot with init=/bin/bash and the bash binary is not statically linked.
Re:Patience is a virtue (Score:4, Funny)
Fairly certain systemd is about to completely re-write emacs from scratch as a systemd service. It's vital for init sequence.
We all saw it coming... (Score:5, Informative)
A Slashdot commenter [slashdot.org] predicted the demise of gedit almost three years ago. The core of this argument was the following:
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, gedit went from usable to fucking touchscreen UI?
I'm hoping he's quitting it because he got chewed out for this shit UI choice.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's a "shit UI choice". Huge toolbars like in the old version are a waste of space; do you ever use the undo/redo buttons? or even print? What would you want huge square buttons constantly in your face for that?
To do what is needed in a text editor you need the same amount of clicks in either versions, but in the new version there's more room for the text and less for buttons that are not needed. Plus there's a decent search and a file browser in the sidebar.
I understand that some people pref
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
View -> Toolbar to disable the toolbar. The default layout reminds me of nano, which is targeted toward people who might not want to learn how to use it.
Re: (Score:3)
"do you ever use the undo/redo buttons? or even print?"
Yes. Often.
"Plus there's a decent search and a file browser in the sidebar."
And it's still nowhere as useful as a properly-indexed FS. Waste of space.
Pass. Some of us stick to the 90s because performance and lack of bloat, plus nobody's going to bother targeting old stuff beause practically nobody worth targeting is using old stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
"do you ever use the undo/redo buttons? or even print?"
Yes. Often.
So you type stuff, and then you realize you made a mistake, and instead of hitting ctrl-z you move your hand away from the keyboard, take the mouse, point it to undo, then click?
Maybe the issue here is not modern text editors, maybe the issue is you having terrible productivity.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should think outside of your personal usage. You hit ctrl-z. I use (g)vim and hit u. The average user wants a toolbar button.
Re: (Score:3)
ACtually the new version wastes more space. You can turn the toolbar off in the old version. We're just stuck with a big chunk of pointless ugly grey in the new version.
Re: (Score:2)
90's or 0's, new or old, ancient or modern are all irrelevant.
That's just absurd. Technology evolves, otherwise, why are you not using punch cards to code?
a non-standard interface language
The current gedit *has* a standard interface, at least from this decade point of view. A couple buttons for the most common features, and a simple menu to show everything else. We're not talking about a fluffy GUI with mysterious things and revolutionary widgets. You're just being difficult for the sake of being a cunt.
Re: (Score:2)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Gedit_3.11.92.png [wikimedia.org]
That does look unusable. I wonder where I go to print. I would have to click on random buttons hoping I eventually get it. In the old one, the functionality is fairly obvious [wikimedia.org].
Re:We all saw it coming... (Score:5, Informative)
Totally agree, I absolutely hated that switch. It was so obviously bad that for the longest time I honestly thought it must be a bug or something.
Anyway, I just use Pluma instead. Its basically a branch of Gedit that kept the old interface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The kids seem to have forgotten a prime engineering adage... If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Maybe it's because "Computer Science" isn't engineering, so they don't teach those basics. Don't know. Computer Science was just getting started
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what's going on now, but when I took Computer Science back in the 90s it was an odd mix of math, physics, theory, programming, and some basic branches like operating systems, compilers, etc. Very little in the way of actual engineering discipline. I would hope by now there are Software Engineering degrees based on real world requirements.
Re: (Score:2)
Naah. Just dumb-as-fuck maintainership. It couldn't even open a "binary" (f.ex /bin/cat) file "as-is" for fucks sake and that is pretty much a required feature for anyone targeting developers.
Geany (Score:3, Interesting)
I've used Geany for years. Active development, lots of useful plugins, capable of being built with GTK2 or GTK3, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Geany convert here. Used to use Kate/Kwrite, even on a MATE desktop, but recently icons weren't showing up for things like "save" and "close" and "open file". Even with all the KDE libs installed, they would only show up if you were using the actual KDE desktop.
Of course, on teh "down" side of Geany - it is really a light weight very configurable IDE, not just a plain text editor. Personally don't consider it a downside, but some may...
gedit has sure ticked me off (Score:4, Funny)
He says using it for this post. I have a rather large hosts file. Using gedit I sorted it alphabetically and closed it without saving. It's now sorted.
Re: (Score:2)
Why bother with Atom available? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If one is using a GNOME desktop, then yes. If one is using KDE, it's KWrite. If one is using neither, one's best bet is nano, unless one is comfortable with emacs or vim. I am hoping that the GNOME team will either recruit volunteers to step up and maintain gedit, or declare that a different editor is their standard.
Re: (Score:2)
4 languages (Score:4, Interesting)
gedit is written in C. There is a little bit of Objective-C for Mac OS X support. Then plugins are written in Vala or Python.
Why is this rant-worthy? IMHO Python is a great choice for writing plugins. And for a while GNOME was pushing Vala so that is not a shock.
Seems like Sebastien Wilmet is nakedly trying to encourage people to want gedit to die. After the language rant he says that helping gedit also helps some guy who sells gedit on the Mac. He also rants that gedit ought to be a super-thin shell around his new project Tepl, libraries for text editor features. This is a weird and barely-concealed agenda.
I am not going to volunteer for this, but it's because I am busy, not because I am scared of a project with 4 languages.
Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
root canal without anesthesia
This comment is amazing considering that a root canal is usually done on a dead tooth and that you should therefore not actually feel anything with or without anesthesia.
Now root canals are still not fun, but are you saying writing GTK based apps is "normal"?
Use well maintained alternatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Emacs and/or Vim.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I use vi ... (Score:2)
In a terminal ...
Most if the time I have an IDE open anyway and don't need an extra 'text editor'.
But I usually have a few terminals open, too.
So I use what ever opens the file faster.
WTF??!? ... Redo it or let it die. (Score:3)
If gedit is the mess that is described above, then it should be redone ASAP our die. Plain and simple.
People, it's a freakin' simple text editor, not the next coming of Photoshop. Redoing it in pure Vala should be a walk in the park for your type a gnome dev. Besides scintilla there has to be some default text widget on top which gedit is built or can be rebuilt in 2 weeks flat.
And Jesus, screw python. I love python, it's my favorite PL, but what douche had the brilliant idea to build a freakin'text editor with Python? Seriously?
And screw macOS compatibility. They have their own editors. Literally no one uses gedit on macOS, trust a long time Mac and Linux user on this one.
If Vala and Gnome Builder were useable, I'd might even step up for the task. Sadly, even native IDEs on Gnome are a large type PITA. Anjura and Gnome Builder have fallen flat on their noses with me time and time again. Sad but true.
My 2 eurocents.
Re: (Score:2)
Literally no one uses gedit on macOS, trust a long time Mac and Linux user on this one.
I guss that is true. I never used GEdit myself, not on a Mac and not on Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
what douche had the brilliant idea to build a freakin'text editor with Python? Seriously?
Me, actually [michaelsmith.id.au]
Re: (Score:2)
People, it's a freakin' simple text editor
It's a text editor, but using that clusterfuck is anything but simple.
Ok, I'll bite (Score:2)
(1) I don't mind the call for volunteers, but I also don't mind the thought of gedit (or any other project) dying due to lack of interest. I think I used gedit for an entire afternoon once and that was plenty for me, but if it scratches somebody else's itch, good on them.
(2) "The Python code is not compiled, so when doing refactorings in gedit core, good luck to port all the plugins" - this doesn't entirely make sense to me, but my best guess is that he's saying that the preferred approach to refactoring is
Re: (Score:2)
Refactoring a public API or a large codebase is hard and requires great care, and there's only so much you can do to get around that. ... rename type ... that basically was it.
In C, yes. OTOH there are not many refactorings you can do anyway. Rename function, add parameter, remove parameter, add field to struct remove field from struct
That is why in modern business code no one is using C anymore.
Why people when GEdit was incepted used C and not C++ is beyond me anyway.
Your point about "greppable" is very tr
Right (Score:2)
Solution? Better financial model (Score:2)
So what happens if someone tries to use gedit? Will the OS warn the user that the software is now unsupported and possibly insecure?
What if there was a ongoing-cost project to support software? What if the OS were responsible for checking the validity and support status of software, and if the software was unsupported, there would actually be an option to help support it?
Oh well. Pointless to repeat the obvious. DAUPR is my new motto, but it never happens. Especially not on Slashdot, where never is heard an
Could "no longer maintained" == "STABLE"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't know gedit supported plugins (Score:2)
I didn't know gedit supported plugins.
I've used gedit like I think most people use it. To quickly jolt down something or as a cut and paste buffer.
But now I know there are plugins. So I searched for them. And there are a few, I found less than a dozen, so I don't really understand why not being able to keep the api would be such a big problem.
I don't even understand why a barebones editor, like gedit, would even need a plugin system. It's like it is every project whet dream to have other programmers use the
VIM (Score:2)
Re:get rid of that crap (Score:5, Insightful)
If I took over this project I'd rip all that shit out and simply use Lua for everything. Developers are so stupid.
And now you have five programming languages in gedit [xkcd.com].
Re: (Score:3)
Because writing programs in a language even slower than JavaScript is a brilliant idea.
Good point. For a text editor, I'd go directly to asm. Can't afford to let all those layers get in the way of rending text files or slowing down keyboard input.
Re: (Score:2)
in a language even slower than JavaScript
Did it hurt a lot when you bumped your head in the morning? :-p
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Open Source problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The examples you give are terrible. The reason these programs are not being made anymore is mostly that nobody was using them. Dropping support for gedit is more akin to Microsoft dropping support for Notepad. While I don't think Notepad is all that great, it is used very widely. While I think the wording of the GP statement makes it an obvious troll, I think he has a point. You see a lot of churn in some Linux distributions, where programs and important subsystems are frequently replaced by others which ar
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
WOOOOSH! (it was clear to me that every example of Microsoft software arglebargle_xiv listed was a discontinued application. That made his post either sarcastic, tongue in cheek or both. I'm surprised the folks with mod points today didn't catch that and mod him as "funny" instead of "insightful")
Actually, I agree with the "Insightful" moderation in this case, because the poster made an excellent observation of great import. Hence, insightful.
In general, I find the "Funny" moderation is often misused, because it cheapens and demeans some of the most profound comments on Slashdot, dragging them into the same pool that contains a lot of noisy posts lacking any depth or information.
Slashdot problem, and a modest proposal (Score:2)
I was rather amazed at the score GP post got, as well.
This points out the problem with the Slashdot rating system. There are now way too many slashdotters (daughters of Slash?) who haven't got a clue but who have managed to get moderator points.
Let me make a modest proposal: Slashdot's quality would improve dramatically if one of the requirements for mod points was a 10+ history of activity on Slashdot. At the very least, that would exclude most of the K-8 crowd.
Re: (Score:3)
Do like me: opt out of the mod thing entirely. It doesn't work, never has, never will.
If you just browse at +1s you're missing out. Some of the hardcore gay porn and sleeper cell instructions that lives in the -1 level can be quite entertaining. Embrace the darkness and light alike. Free yourself from the petty moderation cliques.
Re: (Score:2)
You just don't understand what I meant to say. I was aware that all the applications he mentioned were obsolete. My point is that
- none of the examples he gave are important applications for the proper functioning of the OS. On the other hand, it's hard to use a Linux environment without a text editor. While you can point out that vi or nano are always there, these are not exactly ideal in a graphical environment so much (and vi requires a bit of knowledge to work). In any case the default editor now has to
Re:Open Source problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, MSPaint is being discontinued and people still love it.
Then again, MS broke it in Windows 7 and literally never fixed it since then. Go ahead, zoom 2x or higher, and try and adjust the canvas size by shrinking it inward. The second you let go, it actually shrinks further in.
Also, Microsoft discontinues SUPPORT of products before they even discontinue them. Everything has to be Office 365. Got Office 2010? It'll work with CRM 2016. Except it won't, because you need the CRM Plugin for Outlook which DOESN'T support 2010.
BUT WAIT. It also only supports IE10 and IE11. No Edge browser. Wait. WHAT? (And God forbid they support competitors browsers on this thing called The Internet which is supposed to be designed for compatibility.) Even funnier is, when we were supporting a client, we had to escalate to the (India) Microsoft CRM team, who then instructed us to "Try using it in Chrome" when IE kept breaking.
Microsoft is a complete shitshow of compatibility. Half of it is intentional, the other half is their company is in complete disarray. Every year I support their products, I lose a little more respect for them. I have written page-long replies on Slashdot before detailing my horror with their lack of actual compatibility between products. (Like how you can make textfields in SQL that are too long that will crash Microsoft's import/export tool. So you can basically never migrate certain databases without insane workarounds like 3rd-party ODBC drivers.)
Re: (Score:3)
I'll not reply to your full post, but I'll take a shot at your claim that Paint is getting discontinued. As a matter of fact, Microsoft finally decided to continue supporting it after people complained. Thus, they're willing to change their minds. In the case of gedit, you have to change the mind of one person, who probably doesn't have time to keep supporting it. This is much more difficult and unlikely to happen.
Re: (Score:3)
In the case of gedit, you have to change the mind of one person, who probably doesn't have time to keep supporting it. This is much more difficult and unlikely to happen.
Huh? In the case of gedit, you need one volunteer to take over. I'd be quite surprised if somebody doesn't do exactly that.
Re: (Score:2)
Go ahead, zoom 2x or higher, and try and adjust the canvas size by shrinking it inward.
I will bet you a Marsbar that 99.9% of MSPaint users who love MSPaint don't even know it has a zoom function. People love it because they don't know the snipping tool does what they use MSPaint for.
Ctrl+V and save.
Re: (Score:2)
The examples you give are terrible. The reason these programs are not being made anymore is mostly that nobody was using them.
Your nobody is obviously quite different to my nobody. Maybe they had no obvious business application, but there were lots of home users who relied in Picture It to process their photos, Movie Maker to burn their home movies to DVD, FrontPage to do their web pages, and so on. All of these things were mission-critical to someone, that was the primary app they used on their Windows PC.
Having MS discontinue them is far worse then losing a text editor on a Linux box. There are lots and lots of text editors fo
Re: (Score:2)
Your post is one of the best proofs that we need the moderation "+1: Sarcastic but true"
Re: Quick! Rewrite it in Rust! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the pinnacle was having its own built-in programming language.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since emacs predates gedit, it's obvious that there are people who don't see it as an optimal text editing solution. Just like how some people don't see IRC as the pinnacle of online messaging. /me slaps AC with a wet trout
Re: (Score:2)
It's perfectly fine. I run gedit in emacs all the time.
Text Editors, Like Dinosaurs, Die for a Reason (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
627 text editors
Maybe if we want more text editors what we need is a Framework... oh wait...
Tepl is a library that eases the development of GtkSourceView-based text editors and IDEs. Tepl is the acronym for “Text editor product line”. It also serves as an incubator for some GtkSourceView features.
Tepl was previously named Gtef (GTK+ text editor framework).
https://wiki.gnome.org/Project... [gnome.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It's not Microsoft or SCO who hurt Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
Long time Slashdot readers will know how it was always Microsoft, and then later on SCO, who were accused of causing harm to Linux distributions, and open source software in general.
Yet it's now becoming more and more apparent that it's not outside influences that are most harmful to Linux and open source, but rather it's the open source projects that destroy themselves by making idiotic and unwanted changes, which in turn causes the best users to flee to alternatives.
This gedit nonsense is just a small part of the GNOME project destroying itself through the disastrous GNOME 3 released. GNOME 3 is a complete regression compared to the GNOME 2 user experience, forcing its best users and developers to seek alternatives. It wasn't Microsoft that made this happen. It wasn't SCO that made this happen. It was the GNOME project itself!
Firefox is another example. Years of unwanted changes forced on its users by the Firefox developers have caused these users to flee to Chrome and other browsers. Now Firefox has only about 5% of the browser market [caniuse.com]. That puts it well below Chrome, well below Safari, and well below UC Browser for Android. Even Opera Mini, at 3.26%, has about as many users as Firefox 54's 3.75%! Now Firefox has become an irrelevant, fourth- or fifth-tier browser that's ignored by users and web developers alike. It wasn't Microsoft that made this happen. It wasn't SCO that made this happen. It was the Firefox project itself!
The Linux distros that have forced systemd on their users is another example. Debian was once known as a solid, robust, trustworthy Linux distro. But it has lost that reputation now that it has switched to systemd. Lots of users have reported problems with systemd, as seen by the bug reports and mailing list postings begging for help with problems affecting systemd. Many of these Linux users have had to switch to FreeBSD, macOS, or even Windows in order to get a reliable OS. It wasn't Microsoft that made this happen. It wasn't SCO that made this happen. It was these Linux distros themselves!
The worst enemy of open source projects isn't Microsoft or SCO. The worst enemy of open source projects are their own leadership and developers!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What are you going to ditch Linux for? Windows, MacOS?
No, the rule is you have to switch to something with less marketshare. That leaves FreeBSD. Once that project offends in some manner or gains too much mainstream support, it's off to GNU HURD [xkcd.com].
Re: (Score:2)
that are most harmful to Linux
And yet Linux has never been more popular. For all the shit that the community gives GNOME 3 and Unity and pulse audio, etc. For the most part it has done no damage on servers, and has made Linux far more welcoming to new users and easier to use for computer novices.
I say we harm it a bit more.
Re:It's not Microsoft or SCO who hurt Linux. (Score:4, Interesting)
Long time Slashdot readers will know how it was always Microsoft, and then later on SCO, who were accused of causing harm to Linux distributions, and open source software in general. Yet it's now becoming more and more apparent that it's not outside influences that are most harmful to Linux and open source, but rather it's the open source projects that destroy themselves by making idiotic and unwanted changes,
This is and isn't true. It's true now but I remember the age when SCO and MS were fighting tooth and nail to destroy Linux. They were a lot more destructive than the most pigheaded designers or developers. The reason that errant project leaders seem to be the problem these days is because the SCO threat was destroyed and Microsoft have simply accepted that Linux exists and have given up fighting (no doubt due to internal changes during the late 00's), people who don't remember those times forget just how much of a threat they were. The fact there is still a FOSS community is because these threats were destroyed almost a decade ago.
In that respect it is a good thing the worst thing about the open source community is that we have developers making unwanted changes. In a way this is good as it spurs new projects but that's a useful side effect to a bad thing, like the way that a bad gastro bug promotes weight loss. I think the biggest threat to open source is apathy. We've rested on our laurels too much, become too comfortable and now we have another company rising that threatens to be worse than Microsoft... and many here herald their rise with celebrator cheer.
Firefox is another example. Years of unwanted changes forced on its users by the Firefox developers have caused these users to flee to Chrome and other browsers
Not strictly true. The worst mistake the Firefox developers made was not taking the mobile device market seriously.
The other problem they have is one that Open Source railed against for years under the iron fisted reign of Microsoft... pre-installed browsers. Every Android device comes with Chrome, a lot of personal computers come with Chrome pre-installed. A lot of Chrome's user base is there because they've thought to use another browser, this is why Chrome has the lions share of the market (50% +). Safari is the same, but restricted to Apple devices which is why it's in 2nd place with 14% of the market. In fact in the case of most Apple devices, users have no choice but to use Safari. This is why I consider Apple to be the new Microsoft... and they aren't nearly as... shall we say "nice" as Microsoft were in the 90's and 00's.
Apple is now the threat, not just to Open Source, but to almost all the freedom we've come to expect from computers. Imagine if Microsoft prohibited any other browser but Edge in Windows 11, or forced us to go to the Microsoft store to get software because we couldn't install it from any other source... We'd nail MS to the wall, well if there were anything left to nail to the wall after their partners and major clients were finished with them... So why do we accept this behaviour from Apple?
If your answer to that question is anything but "I don't and nor should anyone else" then you are part of the problem. Apple are already committing the same excesses that made Microsoft so hated and despised in the 90's... but in a far more extreme form and are being celebrated for it. Apple abides open source as long as they get what they want, but what they want is total control so you're gambling that they'll come for open source last. Fortunately, we still have an option and powerful opposition to Apple, unfortunately it's Google. Much as we relied on IBM to destroy SCO, not because IBM cared about FOSS, but because IBM and FOSS shared a common enemy, FOSS and in fact anyone who wants to have any form of control over their computer is now depending on Google... and as much as I dislike a monoculture, Google's is far less restrictive and destructive than Apple's.
No doubt the fanboys are frothing at the mouth, ready to mod this into oblivion but this needs to be said and I will not be scared of saying it because it offends a few fanboys.
Re: (Score:3)
Simple answer: we don't, because Apple doesn't and isn't going to, There is a version of Windows 10 that does that, though. Got
Re: (Score:2)
I hate to say it, but this AC speaks the truth. I spent 20 years using linux exclusively on the desktop, all the way from 1996 to 2016. Some slackware, lots of RH and SuSE, finishing up with Debian.
I now run FreeBSD and didn't look back.
The stability and documentation of BSd is *exactly* what the major linux flavors *need to have* in order to stay competitive going forward, IMHO.
Re:It's not Microsoft or SCO who hurt Linux. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet he is speaking the truth.
Gnome changes in 3 were UNWANTED. Fedora lost almost 2/3 of it users with that and systemd.
Re: (Score:3)
Fedora lost almost 2/3 of it users with that and systemd.
[Citation needed] Fedora hasn't updated statistics about their users in over 8 years, so I'm keen to know where you get your 2/3rds number from.
While you're at it you should at least correlate the user levels with alternate projects which don't use GNOME3 or systemd, unless that is you can publish a link to exit interviews with those 2/3rds of users who allegedly left. But I'm going to guess this is either hyperbole or showing an extreme lack of correlation and causation.
Disclosure: I left Fedora in 2013 fo
Re:and? (Score:4, Funny)
just let it die
But then we'll have no way to open files saved in gedit's proprietary plaintext format! I've literally got hundreds of .txt files on my hard drive!
Re: (Score:3)
It's so slow to start up that Daniel Stone used it to "prove that X is slow" - funny how he never did the benchmark on Wayland and also didn't compare with an old gtk2 version that wasn't so bloated.
"Truth about Wayland" indeed. How many years ago was that? Nearly finished was it?
Re:Pluma (Score:5, Informative)
For me, "Pluma" is the real gedit anyway.
One of the first things when I upgraded from GNOME 2.0 to Mate was to add an alias. Too bad that it uses GTK+ 3.0 now though, with the crap scrollbar and the annoying smooth scrolling that can't be turned off.
Pluma is still actively maintained, as is the core of both forks: GtkSourceView.
The rest of GNOME 3's "gedit" is specific to GNOME 3. Let it die!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Geanie is good, but an IDE is overkill for much of my work, such as composing wikitext off line. Gedit has been great for that kind of work.
I'm in the process of migrating from Ubuntu Studio (an excellent product) to Ubuntu MATE augmented with the Studio packages that I actually use (I don't have any need for a sound studio, etc).
It looks like Pluma will be a good replacement for gedit. I hope its search and replace supports regex at least as well as gedit did.
Re: (Score:2)
The quickest way to make any applications unmanageable and create employee churn is to use as many languages as possible. Even the introduction of a scripting language, triples the complexity of the code. First there is the regular C++ code, then you need binding layer to map the internal variables to the script language, then there's the the script engine, the scripts themselves, unit tests for the scripts. This gets worse when other language engines like Java, QML, Python gets added. You end up with these
Re: (Score:2)
Providing one counts only PCs
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. Long gone are the days of small non-dependent programs. I tend to stay old school. My rewrite of the very ancient rand text editor is a 165 KB image and has dependencies on libc. No java, no python, no ... Does not have a builtin email client, and definitely cannot be used as an O/S. I think the few that have downloaded it like the bare bones approach of yesteryear.
Re: (Score:2)
I do. For the same kind of things I would use Notepad on Windows. I almost always have an instance floating around for misc stuff; writing down a phone number, sanitizing stuff I copied from a browser to lose the formatting, etc. I don't use it to write novels or code, but that's still a useful app and it works well enough, I never had to go explore the interwebs for a better quick editor.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the world we live in. Appreciating things is not cool.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh God. 200MB disk footprint, 1GB memory footprint, and requires an i7 processor or better to run without lagging when you type too fast.
It's destined to happen, I'm sure. Because everything's better when written in Javascript, right?