Non-C++ Apps in KDE Main Modules (Was: Guidance in KDE Admin)

[Alexander Dymo]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 3:38 AM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
>  I agree with what you have said, Alex. I think getting concerned over the use
>  of the term "scripting language" is a bit unnecessary, it's just a commonly
>  used term is all.

Sure :) I just wanted to stress my point that Ruby and Python deserve
to be treated as real languages, not toys or simplified tools to do
some tiny stuff.

>  Now, to deal with some of the interesting misconceptions:
....

I completely agree with Aaron here and only would like to add that we
care about disk space and dependencies too much IMHO.

I think we should think about building great applications. If the app
is cool, people will do whatever they need to install it - no matter
how much disk space is taken and no matter whether it requires Python
or not.

Just two examples... Amarok is cool and lots of people use it. Does it
matter it comes with Ruby dependency? Of course not, people will just
use apt-get install amarok.
Mediawiki is also a cool thing that has tons of optional dependencies
like php accelerators and tex stuff. Does it matter? Of course not,
people still install it even if that takes them to manually compile
things.

C'mon, people, it's not 1990's. We have tools like apt-get, aptitude,
yast and so on to automate installations. Normally the user would just
write one line or do one mouse click to install your application. The
number and size of dependencies DO NOT matter that much these days.
Nobody is forced to configure && make && make install for each dep
anymore.

Once again, we'd better concentrate on writing great software. Reusing
the code, using existing free software as much as possible is one of
the ways to write great software. Why care about dependencies then?
Let's let people making distros think about that.