126 lines
5.3 KiB
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126 lines
5.3 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. title: Background Software As A Routine
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.. slug: background-software-routine
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.. date: 2024-10-30 8:22:04 UTC
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.. tags: atom, bittorrent, chat, cli, console, daemon, gtk, interface, library, liferea, module, rss, server, software, syndication, toolkit, xmpp
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.. category: journal
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.. link: background-software-as-a-routine
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.. description: A crucial consideration for independency and longer sustainability.
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.. type: text
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Good day!
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This post suggests to consider to build software as background software
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(sometimes referred to as so-called "daemon" or "server") and build, in addition
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to it, a companion software, which would be utilized as an interface to the
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background software.
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Liferea and GTK+ toolkit
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------------------------
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Earlier this week, I was informed, that Mr. Lars Windolf, the maintainer of a
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popular desktop and office software, Liferea, intends to cease from maintaining
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it.
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From reading the fourth paragraph of the announcement which was published at
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`lzone.de <https://lzone.de/liferea/blog/20-years-of-Liferea-and-the-future>`_,
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I have concluded that the prominent reason, for his intention, is the unexpected
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maintenance costs and requirements that are consequent to the changes that have
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been made to the graphical toolkit called GTK+.
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> Looking back at those 20 years for me the GNOME ecosystem developed in a way
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that the maintenance work was ever increasing. The different aspects of this are
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the major GTK releases causing massive refactorings, continuous API deprecations
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causing compiler noise and work that does not benefit the features. So every
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time I was close to dropping the project, the reason always was the GTK
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development cycle.
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And the paragraph ends with a mention of libxml2.
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> This is for example different with another important library for Liferea:
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libxml2. The API was practically 95% **stable** for 20 years.
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**Zero maintenance effort!**
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This is not a positive matter, unless lessons will be learnt and measures to
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avoid such undesirable indicents be practiced.
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FLTK and SDL toolkits
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---------------------
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FLTK appears to be a viable toolkit for Liferea and other projects of sort.
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So it is for SDL which the Gemini browser
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`Lagrange <https://gmi.skyjake.fi/lagrange/>`_ is built upon.
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Qt toolkit
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----------
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It has already happened in the past, with other prominent projects such as
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`LXDE <https://blog.lxde.org/2013/04/25/a-guide-for-porting-gtk-applications-to-qt/>`_
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which has later formed into `LXQt <https://lxqt-project.org>`_ and
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`Wiresark <https://blog.wireshark.org/2013/10/switching-to-qt/>`_ which was
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migrated from GTK+ to Qt due to consequences of decisions that were made for GTK+.
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It will be interesting if The GIMP would also switch to utilizing Qt or FLTK.
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Background mode
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---------------
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Some software have a good interface, be it command line, console or graphical,
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and some software have a good core, and some software have both.
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Sometimes, new modules (sometimes referred to as "libraries" so-called), are
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created and replaced by older modules.
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For example, the XMPP chat client software `PyTalk <http://pytalk.trunat.fr>`_
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and `Speeue <https://github.com/thepug/Speeqe>`_ are both based on the Python
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module `xmpppy <http://xmpppy.sourceforge.net>`_; PyTalk offers a Qt interface,
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and Speeqe offers an HTML interface to interact with people who desire to
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communicate via the XMPP communication network.
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The module xmpppy is built for version 2 of the computer language Python, which
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was replaced in favour of the version 3 of the computer language Python, and is
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not present on most systems nowadays.
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By all means, this does not mean that PyTalk and Speeqe are obsolete, but it
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does mean that restructure of these software be required in order to easily
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deploy them on most systems.
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Yet, if Speeqe and PyTalk would have been built into a couple or triple of
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components (e.g. core, background, and interface), both would have been usable
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on most systems, even today, provided that the background software be rebuilt or
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redesigned with a more current module (e.g.
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`Slixmpp <https://codeberg.org/poezio/slixmpp>`_) instead of xmpppy.
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BitTorrent clents as an example
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-------------------------------
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It is interesting, that BitTorrent software, such as qBittorrent, RTorrent and
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Transmission, to name just a few, tend to be modular, and are often provided in
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several forms of background, console and graphical interfaces, and the core is
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the library that each utilizes to communicate in the protocol BitTorrent.
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A common functionality, that BitTorrent clients have, is remote control, usually
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via the the protocols HTTP and XMPP.
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There is a variaty of advantages that are realized when background components
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are made available, one of which is the facilitation of adding functionality for
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remote control.
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Music On Console
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----------------
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Another instance, is `MOC (Console audio player) <http://moc.daper.net>`_,
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which, despite its title, it is compartmentalized into a triple of complonents,
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a background process, a command-line interface and a console interface to
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visually interact with it.
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Conclusion
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----------
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Building software in several modes with, at least, background and interface, is
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a basic and yet **crucial** consideration in order to ensure the sustainability
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and independency of projects, and not to be relied on the whims of a toolkit
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lord.
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Best regards,
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Schimon
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