Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 10:35:12 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: devnull@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Joel N. Weber II) Cc: joelh@gnu.ai.mit.edu, molter@logic.it, adrian@obiwan.psinet.net.au, vas@vas.tomsk.su, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: To UNIX or not to UNIX ;-). Was: PPP problems. Message-ID: <199706160105.KAA08436@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <199706160016.UAA15226@ethanol.gnu.ai.mit.edu> from "Joel N. Weber II" at "Jun 15, 97 08:16:41 pm"
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Joel N. Weber II stands accused of saying: > we want to use. (I may well rewrite parts of the user interface > in Guile and use Tk; I don't know yet.) Tk already comes with a perfectly good scripting language; Tcl. Don't let another of RMS' irrational bigotisms put you off. [this is someone else rambling] > ** System configuration > > I'm sorry, guys, but this *must* be done well. How difficult would it > be to write an X interface to get the /etc files handled right? Or Bloody hard, bucko boy. There isn't enough meta-information associated with them to derive everything you need to know automagically, so you have to embed this information somewhere higher up the chain. This becomes unfun very fast, as as soon as the file format/usage changes your tools suffer from version skew. > maybe systems to take a new user by the hand and set up some of the > systems (like ppp) from scratch? I can see using Guile (an extension > Lisp) or a similar language to make a basic framework and library, > which then can take care of configuration for other subsystems as they > are added. For instance, the ppp package could add its little bit of > configuration code to a standard directory, which the configuration > tool could then take in and have seamless integration into the rest of > the configuration. Been there, done that. For the server side of a network-transparent implementation of this concept, see ftp://gsoft.com.au/pub/misc/juliet.tar.gz Note that the version there only supports modules written in Tcl. Current working code supports modules written as shared libraries, and other extension languages can be supported just as soon as someone comes forward with some language-specific knowhow. The client side is still in conceptual development, as it's likely that there are going to be requirements for several different client styles (GUI, text mode, batch mode, etc.) The current model would, in fact, be quite acceptable as an extension to an SNMP MIB if SNMP's security were a little better. > - Some basic word processor. I'm not talking about Emacs here, since > JRL balks at the idea of not having different fonts and sizes > (although that is in the works for Emacs). Does anybody know of a > WYSIWYG (or even -ish) TeX editor or something of the sort? > > There's a program called Lyx that I've heard of, but it requires that > you use its special template instead of Plain Tex or LaTeX, and it > looks like it is even less stable than [insert name of favorite > proprietary word processor that crashes a lot]. *ahem*. Have any of you looked at StarOffice yet? -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@gsoft.com.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control. (ph) +61-8-8267-3493 [[ ]] Unix hardware collector. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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