[gcompris-devel] Question in submarine

[pgeorges]

Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
> On 18 Aug 2003 00:11:15 +0200
> Bruno Coudoin <bruno.coudoin at free.fr> wrote:
> 
>       
>       Thanks for the clarification. I will change the tank to display a water
>       level intead of a number. It will be I hope more visual for the kids.
>       
>       For the gnome API, I am sorry for it. I agree with you that it lacks
>       documentation and we suffer bugs.  You entered into another complexity
>       using the afine to rotate the submarine and I feel your pain.
>   
> 
> What about defining even a higher level API specific to GCompris however
> the GnomeCanvas. You can have a lot of easier function to be use than
> the GnomeCanvas plus you will add an abstract layer between GCompris and
> the GnomeAPI, which will be less sensitive to API change in Gnome.

Never forget the kiss principle (keep it simple stupid) !
GCompris development and overall bug hunting would have been *far* 
easier if a decent language and toolkit were used. My choices are :
1. Java
2. Qt (and not KDE)

That way, you get rid of most of the dependancies we encountered with 
packages that always change in distributions. Gnome bugs are the worst, 
and I found some API that were documented, not implemented, and then 
removed in a later version, because too difficult to make it work 
properly on this whole mess.

Bruno made a very nice plugin API for GCompris, but agree that you'll 
never win a race with a Ford T.

Concerning Java, please, don't argue about performance. Nothing is worse 
than Gnome. Just look at the poor animations in Gcompris : I encountered 
  a lot of speed refreshing issues, that were better handled in Java 
(and automatically !).

I am also perfectly sure that there are a lot of memory leaks in 
Gcompris that are impossible to remove (it's too late, just have a look 
to all the glib stuff). It would need a long code review.

If a switch to Java is decided, I will actively participate, even if 
this will allow this program to run under Windows !

Pascal