xelapond - 14 July 2008 09:22 AM
Can I urge we don’t use this?
xelapond -
DISCLAIMER: I am a Free/Open Source Software activist and contributor, with very strong opinions.
You have to know that as soon as you venture your unsolicited opinons, someone will come out and tell you exactly what those opinions are worth. And yours would go for… oh… about 1 Indian Rupee. After all, by your own admission, they are based on little more than conjecture on your part about things you do not know and do not care to know, with some anti-Microsoft rhetoric thrown in for good measure. So, yes, while you can urge people to not use this, the question is should anyone listen?
xelapond - 14 July 2008 09:22 AM
Lux is a good enough framework, comeing out sometime in *cough**cough*, which is probably before this will com out. Lux is cross platform, this is not. I just think we need to get the ball rolling on cross platform toolkits(C++, Python, Lux, openFrameWorks).
As a self-styled advocate of freedom you should be all for choice; after all, freedom means nothing if you’re only free to choose exactly one thing. You should have applauded the guy for putting all this effort and then turning around and posting it online, for everyone to play with.
And why should everything be cross-platform? Not all cars consume gasoline, because not all cars need to. It’s the same thing with toolkits. Not every toolkit needs to run on every platform imaginable.
xelapond -
But seriously, you should care about other people that might want to run your software because above all its the right thing to do and your being a good neighbor.
In the open source arena, I write software that I want to run, and implement the features that I find useful. If others like them, great. If they don’t, I really couldn’t care less. I’m not forcing anyone to use my code. This “good neighbor” nonsense is just that: nonsense.
xelapond -
I still have not been given a technical reason other then “personal preference”.
There doesn’t have to be any other reason apart from “personal preference.” If I choose to write something, I’ll write it in the language I’m most comfortable with, with the tools I find useful. That I choose to make it available to others doesn’t give them the right to complain about my choice of tools. Don’t like it? Too bad—just don’t use it. You know… that freedom thing you crave so much.
xelapond -
Would you buy a house if all you could see was the siding and yard?
Red herring. This isn’t an accurate analogy. If you wanted it to be at least somewhat accurate, you should have said: “would you buy a house that was prebuilt for you, so that you couldn’t look into the walls, or maybe take them down and move them around, or perhaps add another room here, or see how the plumbing works?” Hmm, I wonder what the answer to that is.
xelapond -
I don’t particularly like C# or Objective-C because they are limited in there cross platform support.
I’m sorry but that’s just nonsense. There’s no inherent limitation in either C# or Objective-C that ties them to a particular platform. Open-source implementations for both exist and are being actively developed. And at any rate, even if they only had limited cross-platform support, so what? A Torx screwdriver isn’t “limited” because it cannot unscrew a phillips-screw.
As for your personal dislike of C#, so what? I don’t like emacs, but I’m not telling you edit text in vi. If you don’t like the language, don’t use it. If you don’t like the framework, don’t use it. But don’t diss a guy that obviously put a LOT of work into his project, and which he then turned around and made available to the public, for everyone to use and tinker with, just because you don’t like the language he chose and you think it’s not “cross-platform.”
The whole notion that everything has to be completely open and be built on completely open tools is untenable, and violates the very principles that you claim to adhere to.
-n
P.S.: Are you sure your name is Alex and not Richard?
P.P.S.: Seriously, are you?
I don’t have anything intelligent to add to the arguments already made. Suffice to say, I am an open-source advocate, and I have to fight my anti-microsoft tendencies. Why? Because they’re often illogical. We’re all susceptible to letting our biases cloud reality and spur our judgements.
