Re: [Fwd: Re: Wikipedia criticism about root]

Hi Valeri,

...Thanks ;-)

Cheers,
Bertrand.

Fine, Valeri wrote:
> Hello Bertrand,
>
>
>> Please give me an example of application with a nice GUI
>> made with Qt.
>> (I'm serious here,
>>
>
> Really?
>
> I am not sure what your "nice" stands for and how this is related to
> "ROOT criticism".
>
>
>> ( this is for my personal interest.)
>>
>
> Ok, the first example is "RootShower" (There is a version with Qt
> interface) written by Bertrand Bellenot. I really like that application
> neat GUI design.
>
> I am serious.
>
> There are others:
>
> http://www.kde.org/screenshots/
> http://www.kde.org/screenshots/kde350shots.php
> http://artis.imag.fr/Members/Gilles.Debunne/QGLViewer/index.html
>
> . . .
>
> Best regards, Valeri Fine
>
>
>> Cheers,
>> Bertrand.
>>
>> Julius Hrivnac wrote:
>>
>>> Federico Carminati wrote:
>>>
>>>> I would like to point out that they have only two alternative
>>>>
>>> explanations
>>>
>>>> to the present situation. Either they are more clever than us all,
>>>>
> but
>
>>>> so much more that we did not even understand what they were
>>>>
> saying, or
>
>>>> they have been silenced. The second explanation may be reassuring
>>>>
>>> for them,
>>>
>>>> but is false ...
>>>>
>>> Well, I've mentioned several cases where other solutions have been
>>> silenced,
>>> often in a quite arrogant way. Alternative presentations are not
>>>
> allowed,
>
>>> and people have been even forced to remove their software from the
>>> repository
>>> because it didn't follow "the official party line". [And the fact
>>>
> that
>
>>> Root
>>> itself has suffered from that treatment before doesn't justify it !]
>>>
>>> So why were Root sirens so successful ? I see several reasons for
>>>
> that:
>
>>> 1) Root does everything just well enough. For almost all components,
>>> there
>>> is a better alternative (OpenInventor for 3D, Qt for GUI, HDF5
>>>
> for
>
>>> files, Doxygen for documentation, almost all AIDA implementations
>>> for histograms,...), but there is no other place where all those
>>> things
>>> are ready-to-be-used in one package.
>>> [This is, however, very frustrating for some developers, who
>>> provide better alternatives and can't get them accepted because
>>>
> they
>
>>> "don't work well with Root" - for reasons technical or
>>>
> political.]
>
>>> After the collapse of LHC++, users were happy with just any tool
>>>
> which
>
>>> at least worked - what difference it made to have it. And Root
>>>
> was
>
>>> certainly best placed to satisfy that.
>>> 2) Root is easy to install and works everywhere. User just downloads
>>>
> a
>
>>> tar file
>>> (actually not so big), untars it and it runs. With most other HEP
>>> packages,
>>> a user should go through a calvaric process of downloading
>>> gigabytes of
>>> stuff (and you never know what exactly you have to get), learning
>>> obscure management systems, setting up all environment variables
>>> and configuration files, ..., to finally find out that she has a
>>>
> bad
>
>>> luck because she is using a slightly different version of GCC
>>> or Linux kernel.
>>> 3) Root is easy to use (as long as you don't want to do funny
>>> C++ tricks). Ideal for a beginner (so for most of us). Less
>>>
> useful,
>
>>> however, if you want to use real OO with Abstract Interfaces,...
>>>
> or
>
>>> advanced C++ techniques. Using third-party packages is often a
>>> problem too
>>> (but you don't need them in Root, do you ? :-).
>>> 4) Root offers known look&feel - that of PAW - with bigger
>>>
> functionality.
>
>>> So the migration is (was) easy.
>>> 5) Root user support is (was) excellent. The answer to any bug
>>>
> report /
>
>>> feature request usually came within minutes, the
>>>
> fix/implementation
>
>>> within hours. With all other packages, user has to wait sometimes
>>>
> week
>
>>> even to get any response at all.
>>>
>>> [Just note that technical points - i.e. 1,2,3 - are satisfied by
>>>
> Java
>
>>> much better. Which is certainly not surprising as Root is in many
>>> respects just a naive reimplementation of Java (Java itself is
>>> implemented is C++).]
>>>
>>> Julius
>>>
>
>
Received on Fri Jun 30 2006 - 20:54:35 MEST