[arch-projects] Keeping the list alive!

[Andy Roberts]

On Monday 01 Aug 2005 14:56, z4ziggy wrote:
> On Monday 01 August 2005 17:33, Andy Roberts wrote:
> ...
>
> > I don't quite understand what you mean. As I've tried to clarify on the
> > forums, I'm not a Java loyalist by anymeans. However, you seem to imply
> > that a GTK front-end via a python script is more in sync with Arch's KISS
> > philosophy than a Java front-end. Surely it has everything to do with
> > their usability. Installing Lazypac would be no more taxing than Jacman
> > as pacman will sort out all the dependencies for you. Unless you're
> > saying that use of Free software is also key in KISS? Or are you just
> > meaning that Jacman is more complex to use than the forthcoming front-end
> > from Xerces2? I dunno, I'll stop speculating now!
>
> im guessing its a mix of many things for me. 1st, the JRE size. 2nd, pygtk
> is usually installed already on most base systems and there are much more
> applications for this env (ofcourse we could argue that this will never
> change with ppl like me using this excuse, but thats for another debate ;)
> ). 3rd, yes, closed-source applications (and in this case - programming
> language) always makes me "ignore them by default". unless there is a
> REALLY good reason for using them (which i still havnt found, in all my 20
> years programming)... and there is a private 4th - as an ex-java programmer
> (both on AS/400 and x86) i consider Java applications to be slower and
> memory consuming monsters. this might had been changed in the recent years,
> but thats the impression i had from my own java programs.

Well, I understand all your points there. Fortunately for me they aren't to do 
with KISS which was what I was checking. Python isn't the lightest package 
either, but you're right in that it's such a common dependency that it will 
dragged on to your system by another package shortly after setup (You still 
have to sit through 10Mb or so) JRE size is an interesting point. Because 
Archers don't get the vanilla Sun JRE package that's around 12-15Mb, we get a 
pkg.tar.gz instead which is 30Mb :( The size doesn't bother me anymore now 
that I've got broadband, but there are obviously still many people without 
high speed net access who would find both packages a slight chore (Java more 
so that others)

>
> i try my best to keep myself out of those "programming language" debates
> since i know my perspective of things is not shared among the majority. so
> to close the matter, i fully agree we might not see eye-to-eye, but this is
> only my own private conclusion :)

I hear what you're saying. Obviously, programming language is very subjective. 
One point I'd make before I'll end this debate is that it's odd to disregard 
Java on speed metrics whilst recommending Python. Memory usage on the other 
hand is a fair point.

>
> > I'm going to use Archie this week to try and install Linux on a friend's
> > PC. I originally tried Fedora because I thought that would just
> > automagically install, and he's a bit of a newbie. However, it wouldn't
> > even start the installer! His laptop is pretty new, so I expect it has
> > some interesting hardware on it that could be causing issues. It's an AMD
> > 64 chip too. However, I'll try Archie this time and see how that goes.
>
> i can only recommend manual install atm. ie, dirsync or similar to copy the
> iso contents to an empty partition. iphitus is finishing his gui
> hd-installer (someone mentioned pygtk? :-), hopefully in time for next
> major release (Vika).
>
Thank's for the heads up on Vika - when is the expected release?

Andy