[CM] gtk in snd?

[bil at ccrma.Stanford.EDU]

Yes, Snd's gtk GUI was falling apart in gtk3 -- I stopped
using it altogether.  Since gtk4 is a new beast, I've
managed to rationalize this change: I have to start over,
and the current code is not working, so let's get on with it.
I'll look at other toolkits first, Juce and Qt in particular.
If I may be allowed a digression (us old guys tend to talk
too much); in gtk1 and gtk2 the interface was very close
to the Motif version, leaving aside the access to openGL
in Motif (which I greatly valued for spectrograms etc).
In gtk3, (or thereabouts -- my memory is hazy), they
decided to go with Cairo instead of openGL, which meant
the "G" in "GUI" was at a dead-end.  Then smart phones
and Wayland came along, and Gnome took over with its
notion of a "brand" -- everything must look and act the
same.  But Snd was aimed at the study of sounds in the
context of music composition -- can you imagine a smaller
niche?  Once upon a time Stanford was going through some
"strategic" thrash, and I was asked to go down to the
quad (the administrative offices at that time) and talk
with someone about how to position the music department
for the future, or some equally nebulous jargon.  I
was so naive I actually tried to dream up some great
ideas, then waltzed down to the quad thinking I'd get
a confetti parade.  The guy I was supposed to meet
had his feet on his desk (he mumbled something about
a skiing accident), we swapped howdies, and then he
asked: "can you justify your position on a cost basis?".
I said no, and for the rest of the hour-long interrogation,
they got nothing out of me but name, rank, and serial number.
So even at Stanford, no one could figure out what I was
up to.  Who has the resources to support such stuff?