A few comments on the archives

[Hans-Dieter.Dreier@materna.de]

--mKKLWCDimG6fDqGEpB0vEBHrYn4Kfttq
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

>When using a tool like C++ Builder where you have pre-built
>components that you drop onto forms it makes a lot of sense. I have no
>problem with that. My only concern was that everything would only be
>accessible via the GUI. For me, having to move the mouse and click is
>much slower than typing "make". More than anything though, I don't like
>using the GUI code editors. I DO like the syntax highlighting, but I
>can write code so much faster in vi, the GUI editor becomes
>frustrating.

Interesting. In what respect are GUI text editors slower to use than vi?

> I also like the ability to pipe my code through indent,
>lint, etc.

The intention is that you wouldn't need indent, lint, etc. anymore,
because e.g. "indentation" already would be done automatically as you enter=
 the text.

>I should also admit that I have a dislike of GUIs because I have had to
>write a number of the things recently. :P

You're referring to writing GUI applications, not to GUI IDE's, if I unders=
tand right. Whereas creating a GUI might be involve a lot of work, actually=
 using the product *should* save work (at least that was the reasons why GU=
I were developed in the first place).

I know both worlds (though not vi, which one really needs to get used to) a=
nd my opinion is that GUI IDEs indeed can slow you down. Just look at VC++ =
(visual studio). Although they put in a lot of work to make it as comfortab=
le as possible, IMHO it still is far from optimal, and never can be, becaus=
e of the flawed design of the whole thing (expecially C++ with its header f=
iles, forward declarations and so on).

But I also have seen that a GUI IDE *can* be done much better, and with *le=
ss* effort, if the design is done right and the designer is not constrained=
 by the needs of a language that was not designed for structured storage. I=
'm referring to Centura Builder here, formerly known as Gupta. Had they bet=
ter fine-tuned their GUI, it really would have been superior. They simply g=
ot the GUI design right. In the lastest version (which I don't have), howev=
er, they apparently tried to make it more similar to the competition (and t=
hus are messing it up, I'm afraid).

Anyhow, if you got an idea of how it should be, let's discuss it.

If just using vi is OK for you, well, I don't know a reason why you shouldn=
't do so. We certainly will provide a command line interface, and it will b=
e the first one to be implemented, simply because it is easiest to do.

I'll give a simple example concerning the keyboard/mouse issue from my pers=
onal experience:

Once upon a time there was DOS. To copy a file, you typed "copy <src> <dest=
>".
This could be done quite quickly, so I couldn't imagine that I would ever p=
refer to use a GUI approach over it.

Then came Windows 3.1. You could use file manager to copy files. But it was=
 so cumbersome to use that I always had a DOS box open just to enter dir an=
d copy commands, even at a time where a lot of my collegues would already u=
se copy/paste for that purpose.

Then came Windows95, path names grew longer (if you're using Unix, you know=
 what that means...), and drag'n drop of files worked *everwhere*, not just=
 in file manager. And now I perform almost every copy per drag'n drop, simp=
ly because it's faster (and there cannot be typos any more).

You see: It all depends...
>
>Peter
>
>
>---
>Software Engineer
>EarthLink Network


--

Regards,

Hans-Dieter Dreier
(Hans-Dieter.Dreier@materna.de)=

--mKKLWCDimG6fDqGEpB0vEBHrYn4Kfttq
Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable

IDENTIFIKATIONSANGABEN:
a13931a.txt IA5 DX-MAIL X.400 User Agent=

--mKKLWCDimG6fDqGEpB0vEBHrYn4Kfttq--