why kdelibs?

[Pau Garcia i Quiles]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Milian Wolff <mail at milianw.de> wrote:
> Pau Garcia i Quiles, 28.10.2010:
>> On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Matt Williams <lists at milliams.com> wrote:
>> > Especially with the recent news of Qt breaking apart into smaller
>> > projects (http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2010/10/26/qt-is-going-modular/) I
>> > think there's a place for a few smaller KDE libraries to fit into the
>> > picture shown in that blog post (somewhere near "Other Qt solutions").
>> > While, of course, keeping rocking with our wonderfully integrated
>> > desktop environment.
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> In addition to that, I wonder if all the stuff in kdelibs should
>> really be in kdelibs.
>>
>> There are a *ton* of classes in kdelibs. Although I have not performed
>> any checking, I'd say a good number of them are only used by 2 or 3
>> applications (which is OK by the current policy: you have 2 users for
>> your class, it's in for kdelibs). Maybe a class should have at least
>> 10 or 15 users to get in kdelibs, and specialized classes, with a
>> narrow scope, should be in other libraries.
>
> I disagree. This does not solve the problem, which is: It's not modular
> enough. I mean if it would be in kdebase, then one would require that. Look at
> e.g. KDevelop requiring kdebase since noone is moving the "pick process"
> widget from afaik ksysguard into kdelibs even though kdevelop, scintilla,
> ksysguard and I think others as well are using that.
>
> It's not like there is a "ksysguard" library. You link against kdebase which
> again is a big bunch of stuff.

That's exactly what I'm proposing: instead of requiring kdebase, have
a ksysguard library, even if atm it only contains the 'pick process'
widget.

My proposal (for the future) is this: let's have many libraries, with
as less ties among them as possible. For instance, why can't we have
the units library, the kholidays library, etc as entirely standalone
libraries, with minimum ties to anything else?

>> I'd dare to say there are
>> classes in kdelibs which do not have a single user these days but
>> noone removed them!
>
> You cannot without breaking BC/SC.

Yeah

-- 
Pau Garcia i Quiles
http://www.elpauer.org
(Due to my workload, I may need 10 days to answer)