[rgui-dev] Re: A Repeat: New Language After Ruby?

[Tom Sawyer]

hi, jim. 

thanks for the quick and detailed response.

as it turns out i need a cross-platform report tool and your Datavision
just got the job, despite that i dislike java. ;-)

   "i do not like java, sam i am. i do not like it with JDBC, i do not
like it with J2EE! ..." :-)

but it will do the job, i just finish playing with the lastest version,
looking good!

but you know what i'm going to have to do, right?...yes, indeed. when
GUtopIa is ready i'm going to convince you to port Datavision back to
Ruby. i must! some how, some way. Datavision is the perfect "litmus
test". if we can handle it, and better than Java, then GUtopIa will
"earn its wings" and be a success. Please give it some thought.

to help i've responded quite honestly to all your needs. take a look:

On Tue, 2002-08-27 at 11:39, Jim Menard wrote:
> * Don't look like Windows.

GUtopIa actually will run under Linux, Mac, and Windows using the NATIVE
GUIs. and will also be able to run under ParaGUI (OpenGL GUI) and
hopefully Ruby-Wise (for embedded apps) on all platforms too. no code
change required.
 
> * Drag and drop inter- and intra-application.

certainly inter-application for all backends. intra-application for the
native's (maybe for the non-native in the future)

> * Clipboard, inter- and intra-application.

ditto of above

> * Text widgets that allow complex formatting (text attributes such as bold,
>   italics, etc.)

easy as pie:

  "#{BOLD}Hi There#{COLOR[0x00FF00]}Do you like green?"

> * Multiple layers like Swing's glass pane and JLayeredPane.

this will be a non-issue with the non-natives, have to look into it for
the native toolkits. we will have this though.

> * Overlapping widgets.

ditto

> * Come pre-installed on every system in the universe, or at least come with
>   the (Java/Ruby/operating system) run time. I don't want my users to have
>   to install any other packages, especially a GUI package. Those tend to be
>   the hardest to install.

GUtopIa will be included with the Ruby installation when ready. i have
no doubts. and no java licensing issues!
 
> * Easy to build windows programatically.

you won't find anything easier. and our declaritive programming model
(think spreadsheet) makes binding any part of gui and/or application
together a snap.

> * Easy to build windows as a description file (e.g., XML) that can be
>   created at run time.

we will first support yaml b/c it is so easy to serialize objects and it
is so easily read by humans (no tag muck), we plan to suppot xml too
probably through xml<->yaml tool.

> * Work with whatever language I want to use. I'm sick of coding in Java
>   just because I have to use Swing.

Rub, baby! (of course others can use our code, say for python or perl as
GUtopIa is LGPL, but who wants to use those when you can use Ruby?)

> * User event (mouse, keyboard) programming and response isn't difficult to
>   code.

binds just like everything else. which reminds me we'll have to work on
controlling reponse as not to overwhelm one's system. i.e. imagine a
spreadsheet with a cell linked to your mouse pointer --every pixel the
mouse moves the whole spreadsheet gets updated! we'll need to cut her
off at the pass so to speak. threads?

> * Documentation and examples.

plenty. we're docuementing the whole thing from top to bottom as we
progress.

hope you like!

~transami