[REBOL] The Incredible Mobile and Transformable App (was Re: percent! - new data
From: dada::gecko::verizon::net at: 21-Jun-2002 16:08
Gregg Irwin wrote:
<snip>
> That assumes you know where your app is running. :) Historically, this would
> be true because you would have to port your app to those platforms. So, I
> guess another question is: Should we continue down the path of
> platform-specific designs or try to create cross platform UIs? Lots of gray
> areas in there as I see it. I think it will depend on the app and the
> platforms it runs on.
</snip>
Gregg makes a good point here. REBOL changes the way the Application and
the OS interact by being able to be both the application and the OS at
the same time. In addition, it runs anywhere (and for real, as opposed
to a particularly caffeinated RAM hog we all know with it's Swing(TM)ing
GUI) creating for developers the ability to design apps that are
portable, but also creating the necessity that those same apps are
transformable.
If, for instance, I were to write an image-viewer in REBOL that runs on
OSX (when's REBOL out for that, btw? ;) ), I would have no problems with
it running on Windows, Amiga, Linux or any myriad of systems with some
kind of x-windows system. It's GUI would be nice and pretty, and liquid
and all that.
But what about on a PDA? Cell Phone? GPS device? Not only do we need to
think about how users interact with the our application, we need to
think about how our application interacts with the user.
Does it involved logic that checks the OS and turns features on and off?
Different versions (though, I'm inclined to agree with Gregg on that one
-- not the best idea). How does the UI change? Do we have different sets
of graphic packets? Are we all connected and the required GUI elements
are downloaded on the fly at launch? What does an infinite-platform UI
look like?
Wow. What a great language/platform/philosophy REBOL is :).
Thanks for the thought-fodder, Gregg.
sd
