Re: Proposal to deprecate Xlib backend

[Matt Rice]

--- Richard Frith-Macdonald
<address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> On 25 Dec 2006, at 14:59, Gregory John Casamento
> wrote:
> 
> > All,
> >
> > I've been thinking about deprecating the Xlib
> backend, so that we  
> > can focus more on Cairo.   I have discussed this
> with Fred and I  
> > would like to know what everone else thinks about
> it.
> 
> Depends what is meant by 'deprecate'.
> 
> It seems reasonable to move away from it ... but
> Cairo is not ready  
> yet, and the art backend seems to have its own
> problems.  My  
> impression is that art is a little better than xlib
> but harder to  
> maintain (code less clear etc).  I'm taking it on
> trust (Fred's  
> judgment and yours) that Cairo is the way to go
> rather than improving  
> an older backend ... I don't have the graphics
> knowhow to make a good  
> judgment myself.
> 
> I think very little time is spent on maintaining
> either art or  
> xlib ... interaction with x window managers needing
> (and getting)  
> more attention than the actual xlib or art rendering
> code, so it's  
> not a big issue right now.
> 
> However, we do need to make sure people don't waste
> time on  
> development work for multiple backends ... so we
> need a clear policy  
> for future development work (especially for any new
> volunteers).
> 
> So, in terms of what people should be told to *use*,
>  I don't think  
> we should deprecate xlib until Cairo is more usable
> than it, but in  
> terms of what people should do development work on,
> I would deprecate  
> both xlib and art immediately.  Once cairo is at
> least as usable  
> (glitch-free, feature-full, and quick) as xlib and
> art, we should  
> deprecate both old backends.  I think backend
> development work should  
> concentrate on cairo.  If Cairo also works well in
> the mswindows  
> world, we should probably concentrate on a cairo
> graphics engine for  
> both unix and windows.  For MacOS-X compatibility,
> would it be  
> possible to do CoreGraphics in terms of Cairo for
> both unix and windows?
> 

I basically agree with everything Richard said here,
though i wanted to chime in that there is a backend
for cairo on directfb, (speaking backend for cairo not
GNUstep backend for cairo, if that makes any sense)

so we'd just need to write all the directfb event
handling and stuff, to get a usable directfb system it
seems

directfb lacked alot of the postscript drawing
primitives until the cairo port so this should
seriously cut down on the amount of work involved, 

this has been on my mind for about a week or so, 
haven't gotten the gumption to actually try the cairo
backend, or code anything...

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com