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OSx news and external world reaction ...

 [1/12] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 5-Feb-2003 9:22


Hi, I took care to inform Eugenia from OSNews and also MacWorldCentral about OSX news. They both published. OSNews carried some discussion too and one reply dragged my attention: What, does RT have money to burn or something ?!? Anyone that cares to do web scripting can use Perl or Python (or cURL for simple web fetching). REBOL's best bet would be to provide a cross-platform scripting language /that can be used to build professional-looking apps/, not drablets. Show me a REBOL product that can stand next to wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt and I might be interested. It would take that much for me to consider a closed, proprietary source vendor. If REBOL has gone this far with that GUI kit, it's clear to me that those folks just don't get it. That minimalist, insular mindset might play well in the Honeycomb Hideout, but it doesn't cut it for app development. While I regard first part of message (web scripting) being a real crap (author does not mention PHP for e.g.), I would like to ask - is here anyone who tried abovementhioned "wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt"? And do you think View can't be used to develop the same level UI apps? We know what is VID about, we know much can be improved and will be improved. Things that bother me more thoug, are - printing, unicode, better fonts (aliasing) ... simply the kernel changes - are we behind here in comparison to above mentioned environments? Thanks, -pekr-

 [2/12] from: al:bri:xtra at: 5-Feb-2003 22:39


pekr wrote:
> I would like to ask - is here anyone who tried abovementhioned
wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt ? And do you think View can't be used to develop the same level UI apps? I've got wxWindows on my computer. I'm sort-of confident that I could develop a far better looking and working, Windows compatible GUI app with wxWindows than I could with Rebol/View. The simple reason is the Rebol/View GUI isn't windows compatible. It's also the reason why I'm developing software in Rebol, but as a CGI. That way I can write and use great Rebol code, but still have a Windows and Browser compatible GUI (using a Internet Browser). Little things like paste with Shift+Insert, better scrolling, printing (very important!), larger and changeable font size, editing text that works properly, menus, keyboard shortcuts, right click pop-up property menus, etc. It's frustrating not having these features in Rebol/View. Andrew Martin ICQ: 26227169 http://valley.150m.com/

 [3/12] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 5-Feb-2003 11:14


Andrew Martin wrote:
>pekr wrote: >>I would like to ask - is here anyone who tried abovementhioned
<<quoted lines omitted: 13>>
>shortcuts, right click pop-up property menus, etc. It's frustrating not >having these features in Rebol/View.
Thanks a lot for your reaction ... interesting. I too balanced (and still I am) between the "browser way" and native rebol way. So far I did not do any large apps, but all my utils use VID. I really can't understand, what is so important on native OS look (not talking feel behavior - that IS neeeded). I also ask the same question to my users - from their reactions I can tell, that they don't find View UI distracting. In fact, they like it - a slight difference in all that SAP work :-) As for fonts, printing, unicode, slightly improving keyboard handler (key-up event) etc., - that is exactly the area RT should work upon. We can't improve rebol kernels, only they can. Carl should be language architect once again, although I can understand it is pleasure for him to write some scripts too :-) As for widgets you mention, I think it can be done using VID, from proper text editing, resizing, tab system, menus (even context ones) etc etc. Anyway, thanks for your opinion, -pekr-

 [4/12] from: carl:cybercraft at: 6-Feb-2003 0:37


On 05-Feb-03, Andrew Martin wrote:
> pekr wrote: >> I would like to ask - is here anyone who tried abovementhioned
<<quoted lines omitted: 12>>
> pop-up property menus, etc. It's frustrating not having these > features in Rebol/View.
I recently read this... http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html and was struck by the following and how it relates to VID... Inconsistency: It is just important to be visually inconsistent when things must act differently as it is to be visually consistent when things act the same. Given it's hard to duplicate exactly the native GUI of the OS that View's running on, (and maybe impossible with some OSs), it makes sense not to try and instead make it plain your program's different, while attempting to make it as easy and intuitive as possible to use. The problem (as I see it) with trying to give REBOL access to the native OSs' GUIs is that it could only use the lowest-common-denominator features from the different platforms if scripts are to stay cross-platform. That said, I'm sure such a minimilist set of GUI features would be welcome, even though there'd be a lot of moans about it not offering this, that and the other feature from each specific OS. (I however want my REBOL/View apps to be the same across platforms, not behave differently from platform to platform...) -- Carl Read

 [5/12] from: andreas::bolka::gmx::net at: 5-Feb-2003 12:59


Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 8:22:04 AM, Petr wrote:
> is here anyone who tried abovementhioned "wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt"? And > do you think View can't be used to develop the same level UI apps?
have a quick glance over the following info, and make up your own mind. wxWindows - 10+ year old, mature, open-source cross-plattform native UI framework. originally a c++ framework it is accessible from all major and some minor languages: python, perl, javascript, eiffel, lua, etc. a .net port is in progress - http://www.wxwindows.org/ Eclipse - i guess the author referred to the open-source cross plattform native widget set, commonly known as SWT, that was brought to java-land by ibm as part of the eclipse project. - http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-swt-home/main.html Qt - a C++ app-dev toolkit. provides platform independent APIs for GUI, db, net, files, etc. supports X11 (unix), win32 and Mac OS X. free for non-commercial use under X11. - http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/ --- Some sample references: wxWindows is widely regarded as a non-fancy and very solid cross-plattform framework - "industry grade." It is used in a wide variety of projects, for example VTP (Virtual Terrain Project). The goal of VTP is to foster the creation of tools for easily constructing any part of the real world in interactive, 3D digital form. VTP writes and supports a set of software tools (VTP Toolbox) and an interactive runtime environment (VTP Enviro). - http://vterrain.org/ VULCAN software is the leading 3D modelling and mine planning software for the mining industry. VULCAN is applicable to all situations involving spatial modelling and analysis, in fields ranging from mining to environmental management, and urban planning to defence - http://www.vulcan3d.com/guiexample.html Mitch Kapor's/The Open Source Application Foundation's upcoming personal information manager is going to use wxWindows as well. Basically, wxWindows is a proven solution and can be used for almost any GUI application you can think of. SWT, albeit quite young, is slowly gaining ground in Java-land finally delivering the "write once run anywhere" premise for truly native look/feel GUI applications. _The_ parade-project for SWT is obviously Eclipse (and in fact, both are often mistaken for each other). Eclipse is a full featured IDE for Java including all those things you may have ever wanted in an IDE - UML modeling, version control, tooltips everywhere, intelligent code (i.e. the tool knows the language semantically and assists you in your craft) leading to refactoring assistance and tons of other stuff. Eclipse provides an open plug-in framework, allowing developers to do almost everything with it. SWT will most likely help Java to gain a bit of desktop-land. Wether this will be a significant gain is still open - SWT still has to stand the test of time and time will show wether it will be used for anything else except Eclipse. Qt is the framework underlying a non-trivial part of linux desktop applications. in fact, KDE - being one of the two, large user-base desktop environments for linux - is built using Qt. i suppose this alone is enough to call a framework "proven." but have a quick look at some reference customers of Qt. - http://www.trolltech.com/products/customers.html?cr=1 now decide for yourself, wether /view can and/or should be used to develop these things :) -- Best regards, Andreas mailto:[andreas--bolka--gmx--net]

 [6/12] from: joel:neely:fedex at: 5-Feb-2003 6:57


Hi, Carl, Robin Williams (the female typographer, not the male comic) expressed it very succinctly in her writings: Don't be a wimp! which is shorthand for her design rule that if you're going to design two things to be different, then make sure that they are so different that it will be obvious that you intended to do so. Of course, being a programmer by trade and a theorist by disposition, my shorthand is the MetaConsistencyRule consistent presentation = consistent behavior The middle connector denotes logical equivalence, so this can be read as an implication in either direction, and negation distributes. ;-) Seriously, what we're talking about IMHO is analogous to visual contrast in the image-processing arena. Blurred, misty, soft-focus meanings are fun (and essential) in art (painting, photography, poetry, etc.) but are deadly in those areas where unambiguous clarity is necessary (as in programming, mathematics, treaties, contracts, etc.) Therefore, we need to "turn up the contrast filter" and make sure that the differences are highly visible. -jn- Carl Read wrote:

 [7/12] from: bruno:bam:wanadoo at: 5-Feb-2003 14:47


Hi all, May I point at something quite obvious... according to the statement Show me a REBOL product that can stand next to wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt and I might be interested. , we would have been locked in the binary coding (or even hexadecimal) for the rest of Times. Why looking at other programming languages, if any program / algorithm is supposed to be transformed into binaries ?... This kind of "programming obscurantism" is very sad, indeed... I think it comes from the "religious fanatic" feelings a hacker/coder might feel for his favorite programming language. There are JAVAists, PERLists, PYTHONists... and REBOLists, of course ;o) Were the first releases of Perl, Java, Python, etc. fully-functional, with a full-GUI developement system, and integrated libraries parsing XML, and-just-think-the-program-it-is-coded-instantly ? No. REBOL already does things a classical programming language doesn't. Just have a quick look at the "one-liners" on rebol.com... It's still young. Give us some time... --Bruno Bord aka No' -----Message d'origine----- De : [rebol-bounce--rebol--com] [mailto:[rebol-bounce--rebol--com]]De la part de Petr Krenzelok Envoye : mercredi 5 fevrier 2003 09:22 A : [rebol-list--rebol--com] Objet : [REBOL] OSx news and external world reaction ... Hi, I took care to inform Eugenia from OSNews and also MacWorldCentral about OSX news. They both published. OSNews carried some discussion too and one reply dragged my attention: What, does RT have money to burn or something ?!? Anyone that cares to do web scripting can use Perl or Python (or cURL for simple web fetching). REBOL's best bet would be to provide a cross-platform scripting language /that can be used to build professional-looking apps/, not drablets. Show me a REBOL product that can stand next to wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt and I might be interested. It would take that much for me to consider a closed, proprietary source vendor. If REBOL has gone this far with that GUI kit, it's clear to me that those folks just don't get it. That minimalist, insular mindset might play well in the Honeycomb Hideout, but it doesn't cut it for app development. While I regard first part of message (web scripting) being a real crap (author does not mention PHP for e.g.), I would like to ask - is here anyone who tried abovementhioned "wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt"? And do you think View can't be used to develop the same level UI apps? We know what is VID about, we know much can be improved and will be improved. Things that bother me more thoug, are - printing, unicode, better fonts (aliasing) ... simply the kernel changes - are we behind here in comparison to above mentioned environments? Thanks, -pekr-

 [8/12] from: maarten:koopmans:surfnet:nl at: 5-Feb-2003 15:29


Andreas Bolka wrote:
> Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 8:22:04 AM, Petr wrote: > > have a quick glance over the following info, and make up your own > mind. >
Different tools for different problems ;-) QT and wxWindows are GUI libraries. I have played with the idea of making a QT dialect, but the c interface isn't good enough (yet). I'd say Rebol could be a potential user of those libraries, much more than a competitor. BTW: I am building a commercial webshop (for my wife) these days using a greatly enhanced rebol server pages. Rebol rocks... more to come. --Maarten

 [9/12] from: andreas:bolka:gmx at: 5-Feb-2003 17:58


Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 2:29:33 PM, Maarten wrote:
> Andreas Bolka wrote: >> >> have a quick glance over the following info, and make up your own >> mind. > Different tools for different problems ;-)
exactly :) -- Best regards, Andreas mailto:[andreas--bolka--gmx--net]

 [10/12] from: greggirwin:mindspring at: 5-Feb-2003 12:10


Hi Petr, PK> While I regard first part of message (web scripting) being a real crap PK> (author does not mention PHP for e.g.), I would like to ask - is here PK> anyone who tried abovementhioned "wxWindows/Eclipse/Qt"? And do you PK> think View can't be used to develop the same level UI apps? The biggest problem VID will have in a direct UI comparison, IMHO, is keyboard support. We can make a REBOL app look and act like anything we want, it's just a matter of time and effort. You also have to consider lots of other things though. Are you starting from square one, or are you already familiar with a language you are looking to use? I.e. are you comparing a REBOL expert against a Java/C++ guru or are you talking about newbies and non-programmers who have to download, install, and ramp up on everything. What is the exact feature set? Every tool has things it is good at, things it can be made to do, and things which it just wasn't meant to do - even if you can force it to work with lots of effort. E.g. tooltips aren't native to VID, but we could add them, I don't know if wxWindows/Qt/Eclipse provide a compositing engine or not, or what it would take to add it. Well, I guess that's about .01% of things to consider. :) As I've said before, coming from a history of writing Windows apps in VB, there are things I could do in VB that I can't do easily in REBOL yet and there are things I can do in easily REBOL that I couldn't dream of doing in VB without *lots* of effort. -- Gregg

 [11/12] from: krobillard:san:rr at: 5-Feb-2003 20:55


On Wednesday 05 February 2003 09:58 am, Andreas wrote:
> Wednesday, February 5, 2003, 2:29:33 PM, Maarten wrote: > > Andreas Bolka wrote:
<<quoted lines omitted: 6>>
> Best regards, > Andreas mailto:[andreas--bolka--gmx--net]
Well not exactly. Many times I want to use multiple tools in concert to achieve the best results. Consider a video game or other multi-media application. I'd want a slicker-than-snot graphics engine written in C with assembly for the critical sections. The application framework on top of this may be written in C++, and I'd drive the entire thing with lots of high-level scripts. Yes, I'd use different tools where appropriate, but use them tightly coupled together. Because I cannot embed REBOL in a C program and write my own natives I cannot use REBOL in such an application.
> If REBOL has gone this far with that GUI kit, it's clear to me that > those folks just don't get it. That minimalist, insular mindset might > play well in the Honeycomb Hideout, but it doesn't cut it for app > development."
Hah! Playing 'in the Honeycomb Hideout'... Hehehe... that's a great description of REBOL Tech's attitude. I'd wager that REBOL could be a major force in computing if only people could actually have access to the internals and bolt the thing onto their own apps. Well, actually, it would probably have to be open source, but that's not going to happen any time soon. As I've said here before, I have zero interest in REBOL as a platform unto itself. I'd *really* like to be able to use it to drive all my existing platforms and programs. REBOL is great because it is a great language - not because it has some cheap-ass GUI. I'll stick to Qt for my GUIs. -Karl Robillard

 [12/12] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 6-Feb-2003 8:26


Karl Robillard wrote:
>Yes, I'd use different tools where appropriate, but use them tightly coupled >together. Because I cannot embed REBOL in a C program and write my own >natives I cannot use REBOL in such an application. >
Hello Karl, I would like you to explain me those issues. I have no low-level language experience, but if you can explain it to me, I can understand it. The problem is, we hear above requirement from time to time, but can you tell me, how it can be accomplished? 1) writing own rebol natives - what does it mean? Do you want to write C or ASM code, and have rebol.exe contain compiler so it would compile your code? What about library interface? You can put your "native" code into some library and hook it into rebol, creating wrapper function - that way you get your "native" into rebol. Or do you know any other way of how to acomplish it? 2) What does it mean "embed REBOL in a C program"? You can currently pass parameters to external rebol.exe or you can use tcp hook, but maybe you have something other in mind? rebol.dll - linkable library, so you can directly call rebol functions from your app, pass them parameters, and obtain results back? Well, but anyway - rebol works with blocks etc., simply structures not directly available in C language level - you would have to create transform functions anyway .... 3) as for "some cheap-ass GUI" - yes, View has its limitations. One month ago or so Carl asked here what direction to take. My opinion is, that RT should concentrate upon kernel only stuff and plug-ins. What bothers me is inability to have multimedia-capable apps. View is compositing engine, but it can't do more than it is designed for. We can link to OpenGL, other GUI libs probably, and have separate display, but then we don't need View. I would like to see at least ability to hook some memory space into View face - simply said - having e.g. embedded .avi player into View face. Maybe it could be technically possible even today, as we can pass View face pointer to library call, but noone yet showed it is technically possible ... Without such features along with mentioned better fonts, printing, color text, better keyboard, Unicode etc. we are going to stay behind, and View is gonna be regarded as a nice toy, with limited feature-set, always dependant upon what RT decides to put inside ... and it would be nice to know, what RT thinks about future language/platform direction ... -pekr-

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