That said, it's a shame that GNOME, Gtk, and Glibc are evidently not the best (I use none of them but I have read many complaints). Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, the GNU version of 'yes' [0] and Hurd of course. What makes some GNU tools so great and others not-so-great? And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs?
> Lots of other old, weird, and/or semi-abandoned projects too like Taler, ...
GNU Taler is none of these things.
> And where does this "everything but the kitchen sink" mentality come from with respect to options and configuration in GNU programs?
Did you know that GNU Emacs had an overflowing kitchen sink as its logo for a while? (I still prefer that logo over the current logo, actually.)
oh wow, http://ergoemacs.org/misc/emacs_overflowing_kitchen_sink_ico...
pretty nice, and with dataflow !
Always happy to stand corrected on these kinds of things. When it was posted here recently I got the impression that nobody was using it for much of anything, nor would they. Then again I should know better than to put too much stock in comments here. It's full of people like me repeating things they don't understand...
The GNU GCC compiler and the glibc are actually the 2 GNU projects I like most. If you are interested in high performance you won't find any better, most Linux servers (which means 99% of cloud servers) are based on these 2 projects! There are other C library implementations that may be suited better for embedded or low power devices but for servers and Desktop CPUs glibc is very good/fast.