From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Feb 26 20:26:33 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id UAA21429 for hackers-outgoing; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 20:26:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from relay.hp.com (relay.hp.com [15.255.152.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA21415 for ; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 20:26:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from fakir.india.hp.com by relay.hp.com with ESMTP (1.37.109.16/15.5+ECS 3.3) id AA068685157; Mon, 26 Feb 1996 20:26:04 -0800 Received: from localhost by fakir.india.hp.com with SMTP (1.37.109.16/15.5+ECS 3.3) id AA068575446; Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:00:46 +0530 Message-Id: <199602270430.AA068575446@fakir.india.hp.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: Sean Kelly , kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de, narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Win32 (was:Re: Go SCSI! Big improvement...) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 26 Feb 1996 10:06:47 PST." <5097.825358007@time.cdrom.com> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:00:45 +0530 From: A JOSEPH KOSHY Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk In message <5097.825358007@time.cdrom.com> "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes jkh> FWIW, my opinion of Tk (in pretty much all its various versions in jkh> whatever colors) is that it's the finest GUI development environment jkh> currently available for $0, period. I'm inclined to agree. jkh> [canvas] object is an amazing little hack just in and of itself, ... Its text widget is supposed to be fast and efficient too. jkh> pkg_* tools would definitely be my first clients for such a library, jkh> seeing as I've already been forced to do this myself just to bootstrap jkh> my own efforts. Excellent idea. Having a consistent UI for system admin tasks certainly adds a certain `polish' to the feel of the OS. This is also what reviewers in the trade rags pick on for some unfathomable reason when judging the quality of an OS :). A couple of points: * SCO had a product called Visual Tcl which they used for system admin scripts. From what I know, they had appropriate `back end' programs that would use the appropriate user interface (X, CUI) to interact with the user from the script. * On similar? lines Ousterhout was working on Tk5 which was to be more or less GUI technology independent (the plan was get Win/Motif/etc look and feel from the same Tk script). * Tk does have a GUI based (drag-n-drop) application builder. Its called XF; however I've not used it myself so I can't comment on its utility. Some opinions: I'm not a fan of the Windows look and feel and I don't care if the Windows is already on a gazillion PCs and is some kind of market leader; if that had been enough I would be running Microsoft not FreeBSD. I believe people prefer FreeBSD on the grounds of its excellence in technology. We already have better user interface technology than Win[0-9]*, I think we need to take this further. Using Win32 clones as a base may be a mistake IMO when we already have superior alternatives. Koshy