[ale] Object Model on Linux (fwd)

[charlie]

On Sun, 22 Dec 1996, R I Feigenblatt wrote:

> >NOT at the GUI.  Sharing information on a GUI level is far from acceptable.
>         A visible proxy is not always the best, but most people are
>         HIGHLY visually oriented, making vision metaphors powerful.

It might not have to be a direct manipulation interface, but I don't
see it becoming a language interface that would change the world either.
If it's a language then it really won't be considered a different idea.

> >the point where programmers don't need THOUSANDS of DLLs and don't need
>         I love hyperbole. Personally I would hope Microsoft could
>         help us manage DLL VERSIONS better.

There would be no DLL's per say in this system.  All the executables can
share there services and data.  We can extend the executables and taylor
them to the task at hand.  Breaking this down into smaller more easily
comprehensive chucks of programs than one massive program is what I
would like to accomplish.  But how do we get information between the
chunks to make up a conglomerate that rivels the large apps?  ILU?
OPENDOC? JAVA?  Disk drives and Web could all be treated like objects.
Send messages to these devices.  Allow them to talk back and forth.

Netscape's JVM is really not that good.  Micrsoft's Internet Explorer Java
interpreter is better.  I'll just give Netscape M$'s Java interpreter.
These sorts of tasks are not possible now, but with this I hope they
could be.  Emacs formats my C code cool with it's colors.  M$'s Word
is cool because it features this.  I'll add Emac's colors for C code to
M$'s Word.

> >ideas.  It's time we pass this onto the user, and provide these mechanisms
> >to him so that he could "build" what he needs from components.
> 
>         Maybe I don't understand who you mean by user. There are a RANGE
>         of users and some need to be told not to run with scissors!
>         (An ACTUAL "Tip Of The Day" from Microsoft Word! LOL)

  This range of users could very easily encompass the whole spectrum.
group.  Your right though some users need to be told not to run with
scissors!  And I remember those days when I did :)  And I still do it.
We'll always have them, and maybe this is not ready for those users.
I think though it will be a lot more likely to catch on at the upper
end than at the lower end because these ideas are not all that unfamiliar
with us.

In fact it would be cool if this could become a specifacation for varying 
degrees of the user.  Your working environments would be completely 
compatible, but maybe the levels would be based on user's comprehension.  
So power users and novices are working under the same ideas, but maybe with 
more or less dumbing down.  So much today is made less flexible for sake of 
"user-friendly", and unfortunately the differences between varying flexibility
is not compatible.  So if I want to work in a more flexibile environment I 
have to use something that not a lot of people use.  Or if I want to 
march with everyone else I'm dumbed down to a less flexible product.  
That's why I was attracted to X and Unix.  Here is a modular design that 
allows me to run whatever I want and not have to conform to some design 
that is completely inflexible to my needs.  I can still run the same 
programs and do the same things, but now I'm under control and not someone 
else.  Computing was fun again.

>         Mr. Hubbard might like to remind us about Apple's Hypercard, as
>         well as Vannevar Bush's prescient 1946? article "As We May Think".

As we may think, not DO!

							        Charles Hubbard
	   		 	          Internet: charlie at felix.cc.gatech.edu
 ". . .the pope talks a lot about sex, of which he knows nothing. . ."  
	- Robert Anton Wilson