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by anthk 437 days ago
Neither I am a sole Unix user; I have Risc OS open (Apache 2.0?) on an RPI to experiment something else beyond Unix/C.

But Windows it's too heavyweight, from 8 it has been a disaster. And the NT kernel+explorer can be really slim (look at ReactOS, or XP, or a debloated W7).

The problem it's that Apple and MS (and RedHat) are just selling shiny turds wasting tons of cycles to do trivial tasks.

Worse, you can't slim down your install so it behaves like a sane system for 1GB of RAM.

I can watch 720p@30FPS videos under a n270 netbook with MPV. Something even native players for WXP can't do with low level direct draw calls well enough.

The Windows > XP philosophy among RedHat and Apple it's: let bloat and crap out our OSes with unnecesary services and XML crap (and interpreted languages such as JS and C#) for the desktop until hardware vendors idolize US so the average user has to buy new crap to do the same task ever and ever.

Security? Why the fuck does Gnome 3 need JS at first? Where's Vala, where it could shine here and Mutter could get a big boost and memory leaks could be a thing of the past?

2 comments

C# is a compiled language at all levels (source into bytecode, then bytecode into machine code either JIT or AOT). V8 has JIT compilation for hot paths. As a result, JS is significantly faster than the interpreted languages like Python, Ruby and Erlang/Elixir/Gleam.
C and Vala curbstomp JS in speed.
C is an unserious and an unusable language when alternatives are available to you. Vala is a toy to write Gnome applications.
No one under GTK/Gnome uses plain C, they use Glib as a wrapper. Plain ANSI C might be 'unusable' for modern UI needs, but, as I said, just have a look on WebkitGTK4. Glib everywhere, WebkitSettings are a breeze to setup.

Vala it's a toy because Miguel de Icaza went full MS with C# since Ximian. If Vala had more support from Red Hat, Gnome 4 could support Vala as the main language for it. JS? Lua and Luajit wouldb be a better choice for Mutter scripting. If you have a look on how Luakit and Vimb behave, the difference it's almost nil.

While I’m mot bothered by Gnome UI design choices, I was surprised by the choice of JS for the implementation.