[Geany-devel] Build system glitches

[Enrico Tröger]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:33:08 +1100, Lex wrote:

>Hi,
>
>> Sorry for so few feedback, real-life is biting, as you know.
>
>Life, you've just got to live with it :-)
>
>>
>> I see your colleagues use-case but also please remind that not every
>> user has such special needs. The goal of Geany's build system always
>> was to provide a simple way of quickly compiling/build/running the
>> current file for quick testing, not to fulfil a whole build setting
>> requirement.
>> The current build system just went into another direction and I think
>> more and more if we shouldn't move some parts out either into plugins
>> or something else, just to get it more to the previous way where it
>> was usable without hours of reading...
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, it's great what you have done but I'm just in
>> doubt whether this is what we want in Geany. But also I realise that
>> I'm kind of late and so probably changing it isn't worth at all.
>> No idea.
>>
>
>Well this raises the question of what Geany is intended to be.
>Quoting from the About Geany website:
>
>1. Fast lightweight IDE (not just editor!)
>2. Minimal dependencies
>3. language independent
>4. platform independent
>5. not tied to particular tools or philosophies
>
>Nowhere does it say that Geany is intended to only support simple
>developments.  Perhaps its a surprise (hopefully pleasant :-) to you
>that people want to use your little IDE for large and/or complex
>developments.  That is because Geany seems to target something
>different to Eclipse, Netbeans, Anjuta, KDE or plain editors.

You are right, still my concern is exactly that we move more and more
into the direction of Eclipse, Netbeans and the others. Ok, especially
to the both mentioned we still have (luckily!) a long long way and
hopefully will keep this way that long :).


>So it is a concern that you seem to be expressing a desire to limit
>the capability to support complex software developments (if I misread
>your above sorry).
>
>I totally agree with you that simple things should be simple to do,
>but complex things should still be possible, not limited.
>
>The fact that the current UI doesn't meet the "simple things are
>simple to do" requirement is exactly why I am looking at it again,
>sometimes you just have to have other people  try a UI before you find
>its hard to use.

Ok, this sounds like a plan.
Give it some work and share it with us. I try hard to be more
responsive and especially more open :). If not, come on over here and
hit me :).


>As for implementing parts as plugins vs built-in, don't care, but I
>would have thought it was difficult for a plugin to add *flexibility*
>that isn't already in the Geany core.

I agree, to some extend. It's a little bit of both, basic things should
be included in the core, very specialised or really heavy things (like
spellcheck or the Lua integration) should be done rather in a plugin.
Well, now the question would be whether the new build system changes
are basic enough for the core or as complex as that it would make more
sense to outsource them into a plugin.
I can't answer it but based on the fact that it is already in the core,
moving it to a plugin probably make things only worse, at least moving
the code into a plugin would cause lots of even more efforts which are
probably better invested into further optimising and UI-improving :).

Regards,
Enrico

-- 
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