Organization [djo0] [arf1]

[Andreas Arff]

I am afraid that my first answer to you in over a month must be a critical
one C:}.

> I am afraid that my first message in over a month must be a critical one.
> Oh, well; such are the ways of CompuGeeks :-)
>
> From the mind of David Garfield came:
> >
> [Much of David's quote of Dennis deleted]
> > > (Oh...I didn't put the GUI on here because its not a device.)
> >
> > Just because it isn't a device doesn't mean it doesn't deserve equal
> > consideration....  In fact, most of the system should be non-device
> > classes.
>
> I am opposed to the idea of developing the interface right now.
> Personally, I can't stand a GUI.  Hate them with a passion (any
> interface that spends more time entertaining the user than getting
> actual work done has problems).  If we hold off on the development
> of the UI until the end, each Mooser will be free to develop
> his own interface.  Then we can offer several choices to the end
> user.

Very good idea. I had thought of making moose available to the lower layers
of the people (ie. non programmers C:} ). That would mean a standard
interface, or at least standard functions for each interface item.
As I have understod the UI filosofy there will be a GUI and a TUI. Of
course you could build a GUI in a TUI if we made the graphics
initialization commands public (as I suppose we'll do). But I don't think
there should be 13 different GUIs, each with a different object structure.
What we could do; Make some sort of dynamic gadget library, so you could
add (or even change some of the existing) gadgets.

What I think is important is to have a single GUI with a common UI, to
simplifie the users life. Another question; is everybody prepared to put
down the work needed to get a good UI? I think if we make 13 GUIs we'd
have 13 bad GUIs, but if we made 1 (base) GUI we'd have 1 good gui!

I also hate GUIs with some passion, because I think they aren't good enough.
Take the mac, an old black and white GUI. It will never (?) become a true
color GUI. Take windows (os2). Fancy and bright colors; make you tired in
5 minutes. Take NeXT; very good, but it is better suited in a workstation
environment than as a PC beacuse of all its advanced features. Still I don't
like the NeXT gui very much, even though it is the best ever made IMHO.
Both mac and next makes you very dependant of the mouse.

The point of developing a GUI is not to make it entertaining; but to make it
easy to work with. I'd rather prefer a GUI with quite a high learning
threshold that has hundreds of shortcuts everywhere, than a true point and
click GUI as mac and next.

If we wait with it til moose is finished it won't become an integrated part
of the OS and that is pretty dumb I belive. Then we will have another windows
(but with a lot more easy memory management from the programmers point of
view).

Users don't want to have different GUIs (unless they are programmers)!
If they would like to help the chap at the terminal beside him he don't want
to learn a new GUI first.

PS. Dennis, singularis of moose in norwegian is Elg (as english elk).
sig.'s in for 1000 miles service
        --Andreas Arff          andreasa@dhhalden.no--