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KDE Developer Sirtaj Singh Kang Interviewed
highwaytohell writes "Sirtaj Singh Kang is a KDE developer and an official spokesman for KDE in Australia. In this interview conducted by the Sydney Morning Herald he talks about how the KDE project manages to maintain its hierarchy, where he sees KDE in the future, Linux portability issues and the relationship between Trolltech and KDE developers. The article gives a good insight into how maintainers and developers work to maintain one of the more popular window managers for Linux. Certainly worth a read."
Well, KDE 3 with a variety of kernels runs great on my P3 600mhz, 256mB of RAM, and crap video card. This is even when I am performing tests and running Apache (with a ton of mods) and mySQL. I have tried Windows XP on this get up. It wasn't pretty. I think that KDE 3.x.x running over Linux kernel 2.4.18 is the fastest GUI that I have come across.
I'v been using Qt since 1996, and I think it is the best written set of GUI classes out there. I also think C++ is the best compromise between performance and abstraction for graphical user interfaces. That does not mean there aren't some problems, however...
Does anyone else think that Qt should forward declare more classes than it does? The compilation time of Qt projects has went up five fold since Qt 1.x due to excessive of C++ templates. Sure there are ways to cope with it: distcc, ccache - but this is not addressing the primary problem - C++ compiles are too bloody slow and getting slower all the time.
On another topic, who else thinks C++0x should make provisions to forward declare templatized class instances? Including all these template definitions in every header file is complete death for compilation time: #include <string>, for example. Precompiled headers help a little, but are easily corrupted and the cause of many bad builds.
X is actually faster than the GDI for most things. Don't believe me? Benchmark it yourself? I've benchmarked it before, and for stuff like line drawing or bitmap blitting, X stands up well even to DirectX. The main problem is that the toolkits (ahem, Qt) don't really use X all that well. That said, a lot of problem is due to the fact that a properly fast KDE/GNOME desktop needs a lot of proper configuration. My KDE 3.1 desktop, for example, is as fast as WinXP for most things (expect app startup speed, but glibc 2.3 and prelinking should fix that) but it required some custom compiling and renice tricks to get it that way.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I don't know if you're trolling, but personally, I can't stand that "K". I don't mind Gnome's "G" everywhere, but I don't like KDE's "K" at all.
Visually, "K" is just an annoying, ugly letter, all kinds of sharp edges, and it doesn't brighten my day the way a nice "g" or "i" does. Just take a look at that "g", if you've got the right font, it's like a beautiful woman. You can't even get away from "K" in lowercase: "k" looks just like "K". It's like somebody getting kneed in the crotch, or something. (Kneed - begins with "K", ouch!).
When you say it out loud, it makes everything heavy and hard, like something from another language. Konsole. Konqueror. TheKompany. Though each day I am thankful I don't have to put up with a "Kalendar" or a "Klok", or, heaven forfend, a "Kalkulator". The other day, I found myself thinking of programming in kvikkalkul or plankalkül. Skary!
(What do non-English native speakers think of the "K"?)
Well, yes this sounds incredibly stupid, but I avoided KDE for a long time simply because of my strong anti-K stance. No marketing department would ever overuse "K" the way KDE has. Now that I've been using it since I installed RH7.3, I've gotten a little used to it, but man, I'd kill (kill - begins with K) for a nice soft "o", that would be so nice and comfy, maybe even a little funny, like Santa Claus laughing.
(Can you tell I've been programming all weekend?? You know, after you stare at letters for hours on end, they start to stare back....)
jokes apart, what do you think are the ways someone can contribute if he wanted to ?
Documentation. This includes writing documentation, going through the existing docs to make sure their current and cover all bases, and contributing to documentation tools.
Testing. Start using the snapshots or cvs and bang away at the daily code. Pick one application you really like (or feel needs a lot of help) and bang away at it from every direction every day. Then submit complete bug reports.
Artwork. Missing some icons for your favorite app? Make one and submit it.
Other areas to help exist as well, and are limited only by your imagination.
P.S: I already want to change the way some RPM installations work - they dont friggin create shortcuts on my start menu!
This is a distro specific problem, but that's no reason not to help out. Of course, working for free for a commercial distribution is not my idea of charity. It all depends on how big of an itch it is.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned