From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Apr 12 13:51:57 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id NAA18975 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:51:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from phaeton.artisoft.com (phaeton.Artisoft.COM [198.17.250.211]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id NAA18953 for ; Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:51:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from terry@localhost) by phaeton.artisoft.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id NAA02412; Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:50:00 -0700 From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199604122050.NAA02412@phaeton.artisoft.com> Subject: Re: Lesstif (motif compatible) package. To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:50:00 -0700 (MST) Cc: terry@lambert.org, alk@Think.COM, hackers@freefall.freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <10625.829300205@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Apr 12, 96 02:10:05 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > The problem is that new widgets are a bad idea, in general. "Compatible > > with extensions" is a bad thing, and all you really succeed in doing > > is violating style guidelines. > > Unfortunately, that simply doesn't always apply - especially to the > Motif widget set which has large holes missing. It's not a matter > of adding value, it's a matter of trying not to outright cripple > your UI! For instance, what do you need to do that isn't in the 2.x widget set? For something like the "cell phone" UI for the internet phone program, or the "Sony stereo" UI for a CD player program, there are real world analogues, and I'd argue that you don't need a GUI toolkit at all -- you need a graphic artist, and then it's your job as a programmer to "just make it work". The problem with real world analogues is that the intersection between the sets of problems to solve in the real world and in software is generally quite small. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.