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1 Stuff that sucks
2 ================
3 See the [philosophy](//suckless.org/philosophy) page about what applies
4 to this page.
5
6 Bigger topics that suck: [systemd](//suckless.org/sucks/systemd),
7 [the web](//suckless.org/sucks/web)
8
9 Libraries
10 ---------
11 These libraries are broken/considered harmful and should not be used
12 if it's possible to avoid them. If you use them, consider looking for
13 alternatives.
14
15 * [glib](http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/) - implements C++ STL on top of C
16 (because C++ sucks so much, let's reinvent it!), adding lots of useless data
17 types for ["portability" and "readability"
18 reasons](http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/unstable/glib-Basic-Types.html).
19 even worse, it is not possible to write robust applications using glib, since
20 it [aborts in out-of-memory situations](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674446).
21 glib usage is required to write gtk+ and gnome applications, but is also used when common
22 functionality is needed (e.g. hashlists, base64 decoder, etc). it is not suited
23 at all for static linking due to its huge size and the authors explicitly state
24 that ["static linking is not supported"](https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=768215#c16).
25
26 Alternatives: [libmowgli](https://github.com/atheme/libmowgli-2),
27 [libulz](https://github.com/rofl0r/libulz),
28 BSD [queue.h](https://man.openbsd.org/queue)/[tree.h](https://man.openbsd.org/tree) macros.
29
30 * [GMP](http://gmplib.org/) - GNU's bignum/arbitrary precision
31 library. Quite bloated, slow and [calls abort() on failed
32 malloc](https://gmplib.org/repo/gmp/file/tip/memory.c#l105)
33
34 Alternatives: [libtommath](http://www.libtom.net/LibTomMath/),
35 [TomsFastMath](http://www.libtom.net/TomsFastMath/),
36 [imath](https://github.com/creachadair/imath),
37 [libzahl](//libs.suckless.org/libzahl) (WIP),
38 [hebimath](https://github.com/suiginsoft/hebimath) (WIP)
39
40 Build Systems
41 -------------
42 * [cmake](http://www.cmake.org/) (written in C++) - so huge and bloated,
43 compilation takes longer than compiling GCC (!). It's not even possible
44 to create freestanding Makefiles, since the generated Makefiles call
45 back into the cmake binary itself. Usage of cmake requires learning a
46 new custom scripting language with very limited expressiveness. Its
47 major selling point is the existence of a clicky-click GUI for windows
48 users.
49 * [waf](https://code.google.com/p/waf/) and
50 [scons](http://www.scons.org/) (both written in Python) - waf code is
51 dropped into the compilee's build tree, so it does not benefit from
52 updated versions and bugfixes.
53
54 As these build systems are often used to compile C programs, one has to
55 set up a C++ compiler or Python interpreter respectively just in order
56 to be able to build some C code.
57
58 Alternatives:
59 [make](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/make.html),
60 [mk](http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/mk)
61
62 Version Control Systems
63 -----------------------
64 * [subversion](https://subversion.apache.org/) - Teaches developers to
65 think of version control in a harmful and terrible way, centralized,
66 ugly code, conceptionally broken in a lot of terms. "Centralized" is
67 said to be one of the main benefits for "enterprise" applications,
68 however, there is no benefit at all compared to decentralized version
69 control systems like git. There is no copy-on-write, branching
70 essentially will create a 1:1 copy of the full tree you have under
71 version control, making feature-branches and temporary changes to your
72 code a painful mess. It is slow, encourages people to come up with weird
73 workarounds just to get their work done, and the only thing enterprisey
74 about it is that it just sucks.
75
76 Programs
77 --------
78 There are many broken X programs. Go bug the developers of these
79 broken programs to fix them. Here are some of the main causes of this
80 brokenness:
81
82 * The program **assumes a specific window management model**,
83 e.g. assumes you are using a WIMP-window manager like those
84 found in KDE or Gnome. This assumption breaks the [ICCCM
85 conventions](http://tronche.com/gui/x/icccm/).
86 * The application uses a **fixed size** - this limitation does not fit
87 into the world of tiling window managers very well, and can also be seen
88 as breaking the ICCCM conventions, because a fixed sized window assumes
89 a specific window management model as well (though the ICCCM does not
90 forbid fixed-size windows). In any case, the ICCCM requests that clients
91 accept any size the window manager proposes to them.
92 * The program is based on strange **non-standard window manager
93 hints** that only work properly with a window manager supporting these
94 extensions - this simply breaks the ICCCM as well. E.g. trash icon
95 programs.
96 * The program does not conform to ICCCM due to some **missing or
97 improperly set hints**.
98
99 If you still need some program which expects a floating WM, use it in
100 floating mode.
101
102 Documentation
103 -------------
104 Somewhen GNU tried to make the world a bit more miserable by inventing
105 [texinfo](https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/). The result is that
106 in 2019 man pages are still used and the documentation of GNU tools
107 requires you to run `info $application`. The info browser is awkward and
108 unintuitive and the reason why no one gets further than finding 'q' to
109 quit it.
110
111 Look at GNU tools how to not handle documentation.
112
113 Talking about the suck in enforced HTML documentation, which forces
114 you to open up a 1 Gb of RAM wasting web browser, just to see some
115 eye-candy, which could have been described in the source with some easy
116 way to jump to that line in the source code, is not worth the time.
117
118 The suckless way is to have a short usage and a descriptive manpage. The
119 complete details are in the source.
120
121 Alternatives: roff, [mdoc](https://mandoc.bsd.lv/).
122
123 C Compilers
124 -----------
125 * [GCC](http://gcc.gnu.org/): as of 2016 it is now written in C++ and so
126 complete suck. Why can't a compiler just be a simple binary doing its work
127 instead of adding path dependencies deep into the system?
128 * [Clang](http://clang.llvm.org/) is written in C++. If you don't
129 believe that it sucks, try to build clang by hand.
130
131 Alternatives: see the Compilers section of the [/rocks/](../rocks) page.
132
133 See also
134 --------
135 The [list of harmful software](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/) at
136 [cat-v.org](http://cat-v.org).