Re: Changing gui->AppKit, base->Foundation... etc...

[Wolfgang Lux]

Gregory Casamento wrote:

> Richard,
>
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Richard Frith-Macdonald
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On 18 Nov 2010, at 20:24, Gregory Casamento wrote:
> >
> > > Guys,
> > >
> > > I would like to change the names of these things to things that both
> > > Cocoa and OpenStep developers are more familiar with.   It would be
> > > nice to have them as Foundation/AppKit and etc.   This would make it
> > > easier to talk about GNUstep with people without having to  
> > > constantly
> > > say "base, GNUstep's version of Foundation" and the like.
> > >
> > > I'm working on a patch to make this happen, but I would like to know
> > > if anyone has any misgivings about this before I commit it.
> >
> > Well it rather depends on what you mean by changing the names.  I  
> > think it's fine to talk
> > about GNUstep Foundation and GNUstep AppKit (probably we often do  
> > that already).
>
> I'm only talking about changing the names in the repository so that it
> becomes more obvious to developers what is what.

Do you have any evidence that developers have difficulties  
understanding what -base and -gui are? And that changing the svn repo  
names would help them?

Also, did you consider that changing these names will break any  
packaging system that builds from svn?

And how would you explain that people still need -back if they have  
Foundation and AppKit?

In the end, I think what really counts are not names and buzzwords,  
but the quality of GNUstep libraries (i.e., stability and  
completeness) and applications and the ease of installation. As we say  
in German, "Namen sind Schall und Rauch" (don't known the equivalent  
phrase in English, but maybe somebody could enlighten me).

Wolfgang