Re: NSXML* classes changed to use libxml2 directly... Should we merge this into the trunk?

[Gregory Casamento]

Riccardo,

I agree that it's an advantage to some degree, but I will just say
that it wasn't my intention to start an argument.   Just to point out
that if we don't enforce some dependencies then people who are not
familiar with GNUstep might not get the best version of GNUstep going
that they can.

I just felt that this doesn't help us very much.

I do see your point and I agree that people use GNUstep in many ways
and I believe that they should be completely free to do so. :)   But I
also want to give new users and developers the best possible
experience they can get.

Anyway, this thread was meant to discuss the idea of getting the
libxml2 based NSXML* classes (except for NSXMLParser) so we should
probably get back to that.  I apologize for dragging the thread off
topic.

GC

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 5:45 AM, Riccardo Mottola
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> On 01/25/2012 11:11 AM, Gregory Casamento wrote:
>>
>> Any time we allow a user to build without a given dependency they are
>> getting a sub standard experience with GNUstep.   I do consider nib reading
>> to be a critical feature of GNUstep, and I think it's foolish to allow users
>> to build without features like this.
>
> I do not consider it at all critical. "Gui" itself is not even critical for
> a server user and NIB loading is not critical for gui even. It is a nice
> feature, a feature people use.
>
>
>>
>> It hurts us to have so many optional libraries.   Since most potential
>> users may just be trying us out, when they are able to build without XML
>> support or without Unicode support without various other things, thy get a
>> bad impression of GNUstep because we've allowed them to get a bad experience
>> with it.
>
> It does absolutely not hurt us, it is an advantage!
> Perhaps you miss the fact that people use GNUstep in many different ways?
> People want to embed it, people want to use it for a certain specific task
> only?
> Some people may want to use just Foundation and don't even care about nib
> loading. Why force them?
>
> it is one of the reasons why we loose many users and developers, we force
> everything to be a big tank even if it is not necessary.
>
> We warn pretty well about libxml2 missing, but we can build without it. And
> currently everything standard even works quite well without it. For the
> standard user on the standard linux machine, libxml2 will be just there,put
> by the packager of the gnustep packager or just be there because it is
> common and it will be picked up by configure. Other users shall know better
> and why do you want to rob them of freedom?
>
> Riccardo



-- 
Gregory Casamento
Open Logic Corporation, Principal Consultant
yahoo/skype: greg_casamento, aol: gjcasa
(240)274-9630 (Cell)
http://www.gnustep.org
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