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From: Jon Jenkins <jenkinsj@ozy.dec.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: The Future of FreeBSD...
Date: 21 Jul 1995 21:51:51 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp
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michael@okjunc.junction.net (Michael Dillon) wrote:
>In article <3umkok$de2@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>,
>Jon Jenkins <jenkinsj@ozy.dec.com> wrote:
snip ....
>Funny you should mention that, but Sun is currently developping a product
>called SpecTCL which is TCL/Tk with a drag'n'drop GUI builder. They plan
>to announce it when the Windows, Mac and X versions are finished beta
>testing. As I understand it, the TCL/Tk part of the product is and will
>remain freely usable under the Berekeley licence.
This is a good start. Personally I think the "interpreted" type
interface to GUI API is "last generation". Have a look at Borlands
Delphi to see how I would "like" to see X development done. There
is no technical reason it could not be so. We have all the C++
tools to do this type of "templated" interface. We also need
the "integrated" ancilliary tools such as bitmap, icon, cursor
editors a well as object based design so as to allow easy
user extension to create their own extended objects from
standard base objects. In fact others have already done most
of the work in this respect!
>
>You might also not know that SCO's latest version of UNIX uses something
>similar called Visual TCL to build and extend its system admin toolset.
>This is basically TCL scripts with access to Motif widgets. They have
>rigged it so that you can write Visual TCL scripts and execute them from
>text mode terminals as well as X and still get the same GUI look and feel.
Ditto for this. I suppose this is better then nothing but Tcl/Tk
is still obtuse and archaic enough to frighten most users away. The
speed issue of interpreted scripts also concerns me although with
100MHz+ Pentiums becoming the norm I suppose speed
is really a moot point. As to Motif while it is a commercial
product and not freely available I am not really interested!!
FreeBSD should be exactly that: Free with source code.
>
>They are already doing this kind of thing. Have a look through the TCL/Tk
>archives sometime. There is an AMAZING variety of applications already
>available.
I am hoping to participate with Terry Lambert in something
soon but I think it is more than a two person effort. Interested ????
>
>
>
>--
>Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
>Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-542-4130
>http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Dr Jon Jenkins
Location: Digital Equipment Corp, NaC,
Burnett Place, Research Park,
Bond University, Gold Coast
QLD, AUSTRALIA 4229
Phone: 61-75-75-0151
Fax: 61-75-75-0100
Internet: jenkinsj@ozy.dec.com
Close Proximity: "HEY YOU !!!"
The opinions expressed above are entirely personal and do not
reflect the corporate policy of DEC or the opinions of DEC management.
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