Re: [Sheflug] Re: TopPage info for Sheffield Linux User Group

[Will Newton <nospam [at] misconception.org.uk>]

On Fri, 19 May 2000, Al Hudson wrote:

> > Yes, Windows API (eeeeurgh!)
> 
> What's specifically wrong with the win api then?

It sucks. Try using it and you will see.
Look through the manuals and see how many different ways you can rename a
file with the Win98 APIs.
And it's a moving target. (That's a moving, poorly documented target)

> What do you mean by linux? GNOME code is designed for the GTK API (among
> others), obviously that must be just as bad.

Apples != pears.
I'm not sure about Wines internals, but I would guess things work like
this
Win32 function -> POSIX function -> syscall
as opposed to
POSIX function -> syscall

Rocket science?

WIndows is NOT a GUI system, windowing toolkit or multimedia system, it is
an OS. That means a lot more than drawing widgets. It influences
programming methods on a much more fundamental level.
 
> > Wine may not be an emulator,
> > but its damned close enough!
> 
> No, it isn't.

Hmmm, I'm not sure. Windows is not a documented system. Wine tries to bug
for bug "emulate" it's behaviour, which is where I believe it differs from
a mere reimplementation. 
 
> Why can't Wine take advantage of Linux specific stuff? It's just an
> API....

No. When you use GTK/Qt/whatever other ill founded example you care to
name you also use POSIX calls for things like file I/O, you use STL for
strings etc. Windows has pointless replacements for many of these things,
and whether it is some MS guideline or not, almost none of the Win32
source code I have seen has used POSIX. Yep. Not even fopen(). Not even
strcpy(). Don't ask me why.

> > What I'm trying to say is that the code by the programmers may or may not
> > be dodgy, but the use of another OS' API on top of another,
> 
> Again, I draw your attention to Linux on BSD, Java executables, misc
> binaries, vmware, ...

Java? Heh, well we all know what happened to Java don't we.
It's so slow it hurts, and in 10 years time the only people using it will
be Sheffield University DCS.
 
> Not really. A lot of Wine is wrapper; it doesn't provide functions, linux
> does.

A function call overhead at least. On small functions this could add up
to a considerable percentage of running time.
 
> Using released Wine binaries? They're all compiled -g aren't they?

http://wine.dataparty.no have some stripped builds from CVS.
(URL may be wrong)
 
> > and the widgets used (does anyone elses copy of
> > wine use Win16 widgets (sorry, controls)
> 
> You can choose.

I can only ever get Win16 style window decorations whatever I have the
config set to.
 
> QT's open, not GPL'd (at least, most people's install of QT is ;). But
> still, I'd argue that there's nothing specifically wrong in using
> cross-platform libraries. People don't particularly have a problem with
> wxWindows, et al, I don't see why people should have a problem with Wine.

I don't. I have a problem with reinventing the wheel though. And that is
what most of the WIndows code seems to do. I prefer only one wheel to be
present on my computer. :)


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