Harsh Words From Google On Linux Development

jeevesbond writes "The alpha version of Google Chrome is now available for GNU/Linux. Google Chrome developer and former Firefox lead Ben Goodger has some problems with the platform though. His complaints range from the lack of a standardised UI toolkit, inconsistencies across applications, the lack of a unified and comprehensive HIG, to GTK not being a very compelling toolkit. With Adobe getting twitchy about the glibc fork and previously describing the various audio systems as welcome to the jungle, is it time to concentrate on consolidation and standardisation in GNU/Linux in general, and the desktop in particular?"

Comments

Re:Article by Slashdot completely distorts reality

[loonycyborg]

Google is trying to figure out the best way to do Chrome for Linux,

Google isn't trying very hard considering that they chose GTK as widget toolkit to use with linux version of chrome.

Re:Um....

[cylcyl]

I agree that there should definitely be consolidation
Personally, I like Java because there is a set of useful libraries (threads, tcp/ip, etc) that you can rely on being there
As opposed to C/C++, where even POSIX compliant libraries for each are not necessarily compatible. Wasting developer / designer time on evaluating utility library instead of business logic

Re:Um....

[synthespian]

Basically, a century-old rip off of Apple's HIG.

Re:It's been time for YEARS

[zsau]

The answer to that is trivial. It's not up to individual software packages to define a unique visual experience. MacOS with its diversity of toolkits and configurable UI experience is hard for me to use;[1] and least with Linux is obvious how you can avoid all non-Gtk+ 2 apps. (Well, I use xterm and xpdf and Skype: the first two precisely because they have almost no UI experience at all, and Skype because I have no choice.) Linux-on-the-desktop is really basically two words: Gtk/Gnome and Qt/KDE. Once you account for that, there are standard APIs that are standard.

I really thought this was all such obvious facts that I was surprised when you said your "Chrome on Linux" thing. I ought to know by now that my idea of "obvious fact" isn't the same as everyones given how popular Firefox with its very own, uniquely-behaving gui toolkit is.

[1]: I don't care about the underlying mechanisms of the toolkits, but I do care that when I click on one program, it brings it forward & passes the click through, but when I click on another, it doesn't.

Re:It's been time for YEARS

[anagama]

I see. Smart people use broken stuff. Stupid people use stuff that works. While this may be true in certain contexts, I think it fails when using broken stuff costs time that could better be spent earning money.