[Xastir] Dialog window sizes?

[Tom Russo]

On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 04:33:04PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <archer at eskimo.com> flavor, containing:
> On Sat, 9 Aug 2008, Dexter N Muir wrote:
> 
> >   Took a dunderhead newbie like me to show these things up :-)
> 
> Nope.  I regularly rant and rave about such things.  Most of our
> user problems seem to be these sorts of issues nowadays.
> 
> 
> >   IM/GM: Is there something that really needs this particular library,
> > or is it just a convenient all-in-one for component libs - png, tiff,
> > jpeg etc.  Would a break-down into individual libs be a major headache
> > or loss?
> 
> IM or GM (GM is a fork of the IM project) give us LOTS of different
> image file formats all in one package.  What we actually USE of
> those various formats is up for debate.  Probably 3 or 4 formats is
> all anyone really needs.  If there are others they can convert them
> before-hand.

We have need for at most PNG and JPG images.  It is unlikely that maps
will be distributed in other formats that ImageMagick is good for.  Using
a much smaller package than *Magick is a good idea.  I *HATE* the idea of 
bundling some other library in with Xastir sources.

> What I'd prefer would be GPL'ed code that is known working, which we
> could add to our own sources.  This way we could leave all of it
> alone if it continued to work, and have a guaranteed image library
> to use in all cases.

As you predicted...

<rant>
I don't have the words for how bad an idea I think it is to bundle Xastir
with libraries like this.  It's bad enough we did it with shapelib.  I 
pretty much wish we hadn't.

If we grab some library that's high quality enough to bundle, and actively
maintained enough to justify actually using it, and STABLE (this one eliminates
*Magick), then bundling doesn't buy us much.  If we bundle something that's
still in flux, we've forked it and don't benefit from fixes and updates as
easily.

We should find the minimum number of external libraries we can live with, and
live with them.  Bundling all of the libraries we would like to use is the
path of bloat and madness.  

Most software these days requires external libraries to work.  The "good old
days" when software was self-contained are long gone, and trying to get them
back is a Very Bad Idea.

</rant>

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."  -- R. Bach