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Review: KDE 3.2
Anonymous writes "Today I installed KDE 3.2, third major release of the award winning KDE3 desktop platform, on my Fedora box. I have been using KDE 3.2 RC for the past few days and the final version from today. My first impression is 'wow.'"
What awards has KDE3 won?
I like KDE much better than Gnome, personally, but that's because I like have a well-designed API. When it comes to window programming, object-oriented is the way to go. QT gets this, so does anyone using wxwindows (a good rewrite of MFC/OWL). But the Gnome folks stick to their procedural programming style APIs which are fine for simple programs, but for larger programs it just means that the programmer has to reimplement the OO overhead.
I have been pwned because my
Wow! That's it? That's the entire review? No offense slashdot editors, but this is pretty insubstantial. Hell, a Gene Shalit movie review is more insightful. Why not just a link to download the new KDE?
Damn, there goes my already diminishing karma.
it's just a KDE fan boy with screenshot reiterating the change log
This is not a review. It's just a rehash of some parts of the kde3.2 announcement enhanced with a few screenshots and personal comments.
Not to appear as a troll, but wasn't it about time that someone noticed that SuSE had a product which is very well received in a lot of environments (read companies), and Ximian have a few (admittedly) "killer" apps? If SuSE's got a system that works for their clients, why break it? Enhance it, by all means, but if you're buying a KDE-centric distribution, why would you like to throw all the work done in it away?
But the Gnome folks stick to their procedural programming style APIs which are fine for simple programs, but for larger programs it just means that the programmer has to reimplement the OO overhead.
... ... which means it runs on a larger number of platforms than that C++ of yours you only barely stop short of calling a silver bullet. ... and wrappers for other languages can be written more easily.
You don't know what you're on about.
1. Gnome and GTK are both object oriented APIs.
2. C is for Compatability
3.
4.
Gnome developers chose C because it works. Everywhere.
And don't forget stepping up to C++ leaves C developers out in the cold - especially if you make any sort of use of templates. That goes for moc too.
Even wxWindows has a GTK port. Where's the KDE/QT port?
So stop laying shit on the "Gnome folks".
wxwindows (a good rewrite of MFC/OWL)
That's oxymoronic. You cannot get a good rewrite of something so lacking as the MFC, and OWL is hardly better.
Don't believe me? Then why don't MS use the MFC themselves? For they don't - for all practical purposes they've shunned it all along, and with good reason.
I don't really believe the KDE people patterned their work after Microsoft's anyway; and as for 'procedural programming' in Gnome needing C constructs to achieve object orientation - well, if Linus himself says it can be done and done efficiently, then that's two voices who say so - at least.
I am not touting Gnome - on the contrary. And I am not touting KDE by any means - I've seen the code and it gives me vertigo. For you cannot achieve OO with C++ anyway. It's far better to use straight C, and then you don't have the overhead.
Whatever - if you want OO, use Objective-C. It's based on Smalltalk, and that's the only viable paradigm we've ever had (Simula/C++ just don't cut the muster, not by a long shot), and there I'll quote Alan Kay himself, thank you.
Finally, there is never any 'overhead' in OO any programmer has to 'reimplement'. OO is a way of looking at programming assignments - 'organisms' as Alan Kay saw it. It has nothing to do with orientation, or reimplementation, or any of that.
All of which might be too 'developer oriented' for this discussion, but you brought the topic up (and clumsily), not I.
I'm sorry, all credibility goes out the window with "award winning". It seems to me there's a whole lotta KDE astroturfing goin' on.
I see. Seems to me there's a whole lotta Microsoft shills that got modpoints, today (parent was modded '5 Insightful' at time of reading).
As a matter of fact, KDE has won numerous awards, year after year. And I wouldn't call it "astroturfing" to express celebration over a release of a new KDE version in an article announcing the release of a new KDE version.
As far as I'm concerned, we're way past the time where C developers should be left out in the cold when it comes to UI programming.
I don't care if the OS and Kernel stuff is written in C for speed, whatever, but don't force an obviously OO concept (UIs) to be implemented in a procedural language...
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I don't get it. Random backdrops have been around in KDE since at least 3.0 and possible some of the 2.x series (I don't remember that far back). They just changed the name to "slideshow" and suddenly everyone seems to think its new!
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
What part of "thumbnail" do they not understand? Even if many of us have broadband/fat pipe connections doesn't mean everybody does and it doesn't mean we all want to look at all of the pictures.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Lest we forget that Apple's Safari is based on Konqueror, eh? (entirely legally and within the terms of the LGPL, so more power to them). Anyway, I don't doubt that OS X is prettier and probably easier out of the box, but KDE excels over the Aqua interface when it comes to customizability.
Ultimately, the KDE folks (as well as pretty much every other group of designers) have learned a lot from the Mac, and meanwhile the Mac has benefitted from the interface innovations of others (HUGELY from NeXT, Jobs' other company, and also from KDE re: Safari). All I'm saying is that the Mac engineers might be impressed by a few things in KDE 3.2 (the Windows UI designers, on the other hand, need to come to grips with the fact that KDE is now and has been a better GUI than Windows).
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Anyway, I wish that the KDE people could get their act together on usability. As they
/always/ been more useable than GNOME,a nd still is. So they haven't published a fancy guideline manual with all kinds of rules everyone has to follow. Big deal! The apps work, and importantly "just work", intuitively and as expected. The interface is cleaner and more consistant than GNOME.
/like/ GNOME, and I preferred it to KDE up through GNOME 1.2. After that it seemed that they started removing features for no reason, or little reason. Topical example: Right click the Epiphany toolbar. Nothing! What I EXPECTED is to get some contextual options. Right click the Konq toolbar: Aha! A menu. Low and behold! It allows me to configure what's on the toolbar! That makes sense! AND SINCE NORMAL USERS WOULD NEVER HAVE CLICKED, IT IN NO WAY DEGRADES EASE OF USE TO HAVE THE OPTIONS THERE. Options hidden in plain quickly-accessed sight is GOOD.
/really/ pisses me off.
/seperate/ "MOVE to trash" and "DELETE" options.
clearly have a technical edge over Gnome this is
really sad they they doesn't do better in this area.
II keep hearing this complaint, but I just don't see it. KDE has
Reading the rest of your post, I think I see the problem: You and GNOME people seem to equate "Useable" with "Feature-starved". Just because GNOME's epiphany can't be configureed does NOT mean it's more useable! I don't know who first introduced this "No options is inherently superior" doctrine, but I don't like it, and it is just plain wrong.
I used to
This "Too many small icons" arguement doesn't hold water. Maybe there are for YOU, so right click and change them! For GNOME, they've decided being able to suit your environmnt to your needs is BAD, so they give me what is acceptable to the LOWEST common user skillset. That's fine! But since they've also decided that users shouldn't be given options, I CAN'T CHANGE IT!
I really prefer C to C++ for a lot of reasons. Some things about KDE annoy me. But GNOME
Functionality != hard to use! Get it right, people!
If the toolbars are crowded, the context menus are even worse. E.g. in the right menu button menu of the konquerer file manager you have both a "Move to trash" and a "Delete" item. Wouldn't it have bin better to just have a "Move to trash" item, and then configure the trash to perform the correct action this would have bin more in line with the desktop metaphor. On the your normal desktop you put things you don't want in the waste basket, and then you decide when to empty it.
No. On SOME people's desktops "trash, then delete" is the norm. Most people, however, when they want to delete something, they want it GONE, not hanging around and taking up disk space. Thus the very-clear, understandable, and
And, incidentally, being "in line with the desktop metaphor" is NOT a valid reason to configure a GUI one way or another. The desktop metaphor is merely a minor convenience, I practically guarantee that it is not how most people actually think of their computers. The technical people think differently because they know better, the nontechnical people don't think about it enough for it to make much difference whate metaphor s being used. If the goal is being easier to use, then the GUI should make things easier, not conform to a model which might, maybe, we HOPE, be easy to understand and relate to for some office workers.
The menu still have a dominating red cancel button. That button is probably the first thing the user sees when he drops a file over a folder, and the menu pops up. To me its somewhat unclear why this menu needs a cancel button in the first place, all other menus seam to be able to do without it. And second why does it have to be that eye catching. After all in most of the cases "Cancel" is not what the user is most likely to do.
The reason that the Cancel is in big and red is not that it is the most LIKELY thing the us
I want my Cowboyneal