On 9/17/2010 12:29 PM, DeNigris Sean wrote:
I was doing a lot of playing with Morphic this week at ESUG in Barcelona. Many
people seem to really not like it and complain about it, but it seems very
vague i.e. they can't point to a specific problem with it.
I think it's amazingly powerful and universally misunderstood. Many people are
pushing for native widgets for end users, which I think is awesome, but serves
a different role. For me, there are two use cases:
1. People (mostly Smalltalkers, including myself) interested in the UI's of the
future and exploring what's possible
2. People who love their (e.g. Mac) look and feel or are in a setting (e.g.
enterprise) where they have to use a particular GUI.
I don't know all the answers. But I do believe there is a tremendous
amount of unsubstantiated claims about "native" UIs and there value or
importance. First and foremost the biggest offenders of non-native UIs
or rather look-and-feel for apps on almost any OS is the OS vendor
themselves. Yet, there users seem to do fine.
Come on, is iTunes a native look-and-feel for an OS? Or Safari, two apps
from the creator of oh so elegant and beautiful. I don't really think
so. I don't even think they are particularly attractive or intuitive. Or
Quicktime. Or Internet Explorer. Or Windows Media. etc... I really
can't go into any further detail as I am not currently using a Mac and I
use as little MS software as I possibly can on my Windows OS machine.
How about old Visual Basic or Hypercard apps?
How about AIM, Yahoo Messenger, or whatever current cool tool is out
there. Are they following any of the mantras tossed around by the we
want native crowd? Not really.
How about educational software and games. Both very common with lots of
use. People seem to manage fine.
Do I think Squeak/Pharo have to have arrived at their best UI. No, not
at all. But I definitely do not believe "native" is better. And "native"
never automatically means intuitive. It may be or not depending on the
app. And non-native does not mean un-intuitive and poor quality.
I do think we can do better. I do like the idea of having multiple OS
windows available to the app developer. But I don't like being dependent
on anybody else to fix a bug or port their UI or widgets to the next
great OS. Heck I'm ready for Pharo 2.x/3.x to become my next OS. :)
Whatever we do. I believe it is very important for us to maintain our
control over our destiny. For me, wx, qt or whatever just simply reduces
us to the same playing field as Python, Ruby, etc. I really believe we
can be better. It is one of the reasons I use Squeak/Pharo/Smalltalk.
To me the more we can do in Smalltalk the better. I say that fully
understanding outside requirements. I am currently in the process of
building an application in Pharo which requires the use of a Windows COM
dll. This is a business requirement. Unfortunately, that is something I
can not do in Pharo right now. Yes I know one of you wizard may be able
to do something with Alien, FFI, or whatever. But it is something not
currently accessible to people who only use the Smalltalk side of
things. It is very easy to do in Python, which is what I used to write
an intermediate application which communicates between the COM dll and
my Pharo app.
So I do understand, certain real world use case requirements for
interfacing outside elements. I just don't believe the UI is really one,
especially when counter examples are so incredibly abundant and are some
of the biggest apps in use anywhere and often written by the OS vendor.
I am not an implementer of any of these things, only a user. But these
are some things I observe. YMMV, IMHO, all the standard disclaimers.
:) :) :)
Jimmie
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