*BSD News Article 47445


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From: michael@okjunc.junction.net (Michael Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: The Future of FreeBSD...
Date: 21 Jul 1995 07:45:03 GMT
Organization: Okanagan Internet Junction, Vernon B.C., Canada
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <3unlu0$2ch@felix.junction.net>
References: <3uktse$d9c@hal.nt.tuwien.ac.at> <3ulsro$ssl@agate.berkeley.edu> <3umkok$de2@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: okjunc.junction.net

In article <3umkok$de2@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>,
Jon Jenkins  <jenkinsj@ozy.dec.com> wrote:
>I wont reply to the detail of this post but I will give
>a completely subjective opinion of what FreeBSD needs
>to survive and propser:
>
>(GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI )^100000000000000000000000000000
>
>We could all learn something from MS Windows success.
>
>An easy to use GUI X development tools ala Borlands Delphi
>for Windows. This makes GUI development easy and quick.
>Probably this would be based on Xview or Motif clone
>maybe even Tcl/Tk but the next generation allowing users
>to "drag n drop" user interfaces for X.

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.

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.

>Once this happens the "hords" will take it form there
>as they have with MS Windows and develop/port
>all sorts of proggies to make life easier.

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.



-- 
Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-542-4130
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael@memra.com