Brian, > I assume though that you are talking about hoping for an iOS-native JHS.
I had assumed that JHS was already working on iOS. Or soon will. It works on Android…? Maybe Android is the more important platform, business-wise? But (from all I've seen) all the really attractive apps are developed for iOS and get ported to Android – or copied on it. Rarely do they go the other way. As was always the case with Mac and Win. (If anyone knows of a counter-example, I want to study it.) > Does that appeal to you because JHS has all the html capability to readily produce a user interface even on iOS which has its own (unique) interface generation system with storyboards, etc.? No. I've been down that route for my whole J career. Cross-developing for Mac & Win in 1995-2004, I thought jwd on j602 worked fine for the purpose, at least for fast development of simple apps. It's what drew me to J. But now that UIs have become much more intricate, and I've long abandoned Win as a development platform (with a sigh of relief), I've concluded a native J GUI api is not the way to go, whether jqt or jhs. It's a thankless task for the vendor to maintain, and for the pro user to get to grips with and learn all its funny little ways. All to get something with a tricky feel that looks clunky when set against a native app on iOS or macOS. I know this is a dissenting view. But I've seen elaborate products (e.g. Eigenharp) crash in flames because of their unacceptable UI, after eating up literally years of developer time. My own have crashed that way. Eigenlabs coded in Python, and used the GUI api that came with Python. The result? A shaky feel when they attempted anything smart, like an interactive wiring diagram, plus unforgivable bugs and a freaky behavior (courtesy of Python) when they needed something plain, like a dialog box showing edit fields. Well, you don't race a lame horse, whatever the course. Who has patience with a novel app that can't do ordinary tasks ordinarily well? On the other hand, J as a faceless engine does have a future. C/f Darwin as an engine. The entire Mac GUI is built on the back of Darwin. But nobody would claim the Darwin "GUI" (viz. Mac:Terminal) is anything wonderful – except a unix coder of the old school. So… a useful engine can get by with a 1970s developer interface, provided it can wear the face-mask of its target platform. That's why I'm experimenting with "face-masks" written in Xcode/Swift, for which the interesting part of the app is coded in J. > And you foresee individuals creating their own iOS JHS apps? No. I foresee individuals taking a pre-coded iOS face-mask and creating their own app using plain J. (E.g. K-12 pupils.) I'm not writing (quote) "JHS apps" as such. I've ignored Javascript and am using ~addons/ide/jhs mainly for its transmission layer between J (jconsole) and Xcode/Swift. I'm even using Xcode to maintain the J scripts, which all reside inside the bundle (…which is what Apple developers call the "monolithic" app that gets shipped.) However JHS does come with jijx, which is really proving its worth as a diagnostic console for coding the J daemon. > I have constructed one app on my desktop Mac with JHS for using on my iPad browser from wifi, and it has worked fine. I'm intrigued by that. I foresee a big future for J there too: personal health apps running on an Apple Watch communicating remotely with an iOS device: iPhone or iPad – or even with a desktop Mac. The watchOS gathers the bio-data from your wrist, the iOS (or macOS) has the oomph! to process it, and output it in exciting ways. My architecture would adapt easily. Though I'm not sure which way round the (~addons/ide/jhs) link would operate. Perversely I guess the watchOS should be the server and iOS (or macOS) the client. (If there's more to say on this, maybe we should go over to Chat?) Ian Clark On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 2:55 PM, Brian Schott <[email protected]> wrote: > Ian, > > I tried the line below in both jqt and jconsole. In jqt I saw and heard > nothing, but got an immediate linefeed and the keyboard active. In jconsole > I got the message "Voice `Milena' not found." followed by a hung session > that only replied to control-c. So I change Milena to English and got a > similar result. > > 2!:1 'say -v Milena Только дурак это сделает! &' > > Perhaps my Mac OS is too old: 10.7.5 ? > > Thanks for the example, > > While I am writing: your comment about JHS on iOS was interesting to me, > but I think you are thinking in another way than I am. I have constructed > one app on my desktop Mac with JHS for using on my iPad browser from wifi, > and it has worked fine. I am attempting to develop another app but I am > not optimistic about it working on my iPad browser because it triggers the > browser's webcam, which iOS browsers have not accomplished, according to my > research. > > I assume though that you are talking about hoping for an iOS-native JHS. > Does that appeal to you because JHS has all the html capability to readily > produce a user interface even on iOS which has it's own (unique) interface > generation system with storyboards, etc.? And you foresee individuals > creating their own iOS JHS apps? (Maybe such an app could access the iPad > camera, too.) The appeal of JHS to me is that html seems to have been very > stable, whereas opengl and qt and other such systems have not remained > readily available. So I sort of see why you would want JHS on iOS, too. > > Btw, is JHS on Android? > > I'm just rambling. Don't feel obliged to reply. > > On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 10:06 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > > > 2!:1 'say -v Milena > > > > ! &' > > > > BTW: I don't see a lot here about JHS as a faceless daemon talking > through > > a pretty Apple face, whether macOS or iOS. But I'm convinced it has a > > future, and now I have hard evidence. If anyone on this list is working > > along similar lines and wants to see where I'm up to, pm me and I'll > > cheerfully zip-up an Xcode project or two and email you a box link. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
