Re: Can ooRexx, Regina and Reginald coexist?

Jeff Glatt <jglatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

REXX GUI is very Windows-centric...

I think that a lot of cross-platform stuff is misguided.

I agree as/when there's an attempt to make apps look virtually identical,
but I'm happy that more or less the same main logic can be made to work
somehow on another platform.

I think it depends too on whether one sets out to write an application for
multiple platforms, or merely wants one meant for an original platform to be
able to run in some fashion on another.



Now, if you have a Windows UI designer that lets you put together a UI so
quickly and easily, and you have the same for Linux, who cares if they do
things differently? In fact, that's a good thing because it means that you
get a real choice. You've got two things that are truly different, not two
things that are the same. I like to use the analogy that choice isn't "I
can get a hamburger at McDonald's or I can get a hamburger at Burger King,
or I can get a hamburger at Wendy's". Real choice is "I can get a
hamburger at McDonald's or I can get some ethnic food at the small local
restaurant next door".

I pretty much agree with your point of view, but only as a programmer.
Faced with an app with one GUI which I understood I'd hope I could set it up
elsewhere if I understood how GUIs worked elsewhere.

But a major attraction of your system (to me) is that I don't need to learn
much/anything about how windows guis work, just how to make your system
work. But I'll not easily be able to remove gui stuff from a reginald exec
and add some other gui. Still I'd expect to be able to use the core logic
in the app to produce another one on another system.

However I wouldn't expect a non-programmer to be able to take a reginald
exec and its gui, separate them, and put it all together elsewhere.



Maybe you could write some sort of
migration tool that read the "intention" of a reginald gui definition and
generated something similar in the linux gui format?

That could probably be done to some extent,

.... the appeal would be that if I'd kept reginald windows gui stuff basic
that a conversion process would make it easy for me (or someone else without
me being involved) to take such an app and make it work elsewhere.

Perhaps you would at least be able to make a standard subset of the whole
work elsewhere. Even that would help a more naive user in their
understanding of an app that they were trying to migrate.



But if the converter does only half the job, and then produces something
that looks completely different to the programmer, I think it's very
debatable whether he's any farther along than starting at point zero with
a good tool.

Yes, I agree, provided the programmer IS a programmer of some reasonable
ability. I'm just hoping that less skilled users will be able to move their
code easily.


--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Great SWT Program
    ... keyboard shortcuts aren't always obvious. ... A user using a GUI app may notice something ... and notice tedium using a GUI app to do it. ... specifically think of the feature they wanted and couldn't find in it. ...
    (comp.lang.java.programmer)
  • Re: MacUpdatePromo
    ... easy way to know which app will work which way. ... so users are supposed to know all GUI guidelines and understand the ... when they close a window. ... them to quit. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: 1stPMTry.EXE
    ... Adding a GUI itself isn't important, ... method instead of a table with a few records and a scrollbar? ... Text entry field for the next, followed by a checkbox and whatever you ... The way the underlying "remarable" app works may be interesting, ...
    (comp.os.os2.programmer.misc)
  • Re: app with standalone gui and web interface
    ... > and separately creating a gui for the ... (for the wxPython version). ... installed could access the application as if it was a desktop app. ... fetch the same wxwml source, convert it into html/xml and send that to ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: Beginning GUI
    ... I have not yet encountered a programmer that I admire that heavily uses the ... VS designer gui without really understanding what goes on in the background. ... I've done several C# console applications now, ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp)