Re: Opal/CoreGraphics (was Re: UIKit?)

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,
> > We must consider that workstations are not our only target. 
> > Increasing so in the future. Depending on something like libart or 
> > cairo for a small netbook or a handheld is too much of a burden.
>
> Absolutely not true.  Modern handhelds don't just come with a GPU, 
> they come with a GPU which has a fully programmable shader pipeline.
>
> There's a reason why UIKit is fundamentally different to AppKit; the 
> constraints of modern handhelds are very different to the constraints 
> of an '80s workstation.  Compositing is now much faster because it can 
> be done in hardware and wasting RAM (for buffers) is vastly better 
> than wasting CPU cycles drawing:  RAM uses a roughly constant amount 
> of power, while the CPU uses more when it's in use, so you get better 
> power usage by using a CoreAnimation-like model than the old AppKit 
> model.  You also have a vastly higher ratio of RAM to pixels on an 
> older handheld like the Nokia 770 than you had on the best 
> workstations NeXT ever sold.
Things are not so rose as you describe. It is clear that if you think in 
terms of an Atom based netbooks we do not need to worry, those are small 
workstations in almost every aspects. But there are other devices, 
netbooks based on MIPS, ARM processors. So there are handhelds.
I have one of the Letux netbooks of GoldenDelicious, they have a much 
more limited framebuffer than devices you describe. So ti also 
instructive to watch and know about the problems and performance 
differences Nikolaus or Felipe have when running on interesting 
non-mainstream devices.
If apple decides to put so powerful cpu's in their devices that they 
burn the white plastic and they start to underclock the CPU... that is 
their decision. Their devices are expensive anyway and don't always 
perform as fast as the should either.

The point is that if we have the same dependencies and the same 
requirements and the same performances of other toolkits, why should 
somebody wants to use GNUstep? (admitted that we are in any case 
inferior in several areas)? Just because obj-c is cool? For most that is 
a problem even...
If on the contrary we distinguish ourselves because we run efficiently 
on a 100$ device, we have a new market segment and we are interesting.

I think many here miss what flexibility can mean for us. Distinction.

I found LindauSTEP discussions to be very very interesting in this regard.

Riccardo