kde 3.1 -- make Keramik default?

[Roberto H. Alsina]

On Thu, May 30 2002 at 02:36:20pm -0700, Neil Stevens wrote:
> > >
> > > So now I ask this: Is fashion more important than consistency,
> > > usability, and efficiency?
> >
> > a) Consistence doesn't exist in abstraction. Consistence with what
> > exactly are you talking about?
> 
> Consistency in interface.  One way KDE makes Unix OSes more usable, since 
> its founding, is that the parts of the desktop look and act the same way.  
> Changing al. the widgets and the icons is a step away from that 
> consistency, and so shouldn't be done without proper consideration.

When KDE uses Keramik, all widgets and KDE apps use Keramik. So, they
are not inconsistent. Or you mean inconsistent with KDE 3.0? Perhaps,
you would be happier if the default style is windows-like? That is
consistent with way more installations than KDE3's style.

That is why I asked: consistence with WHAT?

> > b) Is current style more usable than Keramik? How? Why?
> 
> The default is a known good quantity.  If the default were no good, then 
> sometime between 2.0 and 3.0.1 there would have been criticisms made.  
> This is hard, observable evidence.  Only now is the default being 
> criticized for being out of fashion, stodgy, non-modern, or just plain 
> old.

So, you don't know. You just guess because you have not heard
complaints.

> Keramik and Crystal, on the other hand, is new.  A new icon style, a new 
> widget pixmap engine, a new way for buttons and other widgets to look and 
> act.  We have no evidence that it's any good at all.

We have no evidence they are bad, either. So, you are just guessing, and
it's subjective right now, until someone bothers doing a real
cuantitative study (which is never going to happen).

> > c) Is current style more efficient? How and why? Efficient for who? When
> >    he does what?
> 
> The current style is drawn using C++ code, rather than shuffling pixmaps to 
> and from the X server.  The current style uses simpler drawings, so it 
> simply takes less time to draw.  This makes the current style more 
> efficient for anyone using it.

Got any measurements? I'd take an ounce of benchmark over a furlough of
guessing ;-) But yeah, I see that Keramik should be slow if you use a
remote X server.

> An easy way to drastically see differences in efficiency is to simply 
> switch desktops, and watch the full redraw.  Simple styles "feel" snapper, 
> because they draw faster.
> 
> > Now, after you know the answer to those questions, you see if they are
> > more important than fashion. Because a lot of fashion is more important
> > than a very very small bit of efficiency, yes.
> 
> Small for whom?  KDE has gotten repeated praise worldwide for being 
> runnable on older workstatoins that rich countries have abandoned.

KDE is a pig on old computers. GNOME works faster on them. KDE does work
ok on modern computers, though. I can run GNOME on a 32MB computer, KDE
doesn't unless I perform extensive configuration/castration.

XFCE kills both. 

> Are use cases like this less important than some whim of fashion?  I don't 
> think so.

Well, that case is, in my humble experience, not true anyway.

 ("\''/").__..-''"`-. .         Roberto Alsina
 `9_ 9  )   `-. (    ).`-._.`)  ralsina at kde.org
 (_Y_.)' ._   ) `._`.  " -.-'   KDE Developer (MFCH)
  _..`-'_..-_/ /-'_.'           
(l)-'' ((i).' ((!.'             Buenos Aires - Argentina
I would like to believe in God [..]. But I just believe in Billy Wilder.