[OT] the uses of computing

[ketmar via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2014 23:34:17 +0000
Joakim via Digitalmars-d-learn <digitalmars-d-learn at puremagic.com>
wrote:

> The desktop UI paradigm needs to be completely redone, from the 
> ground up.  Current desktop GUIs are too limiting and the 
> terminal is powerful but antiquated.  The problem is how best to 
> combine the two, since one is focused on keyboard input whether 
> the other mostly uses trackpad/mouse.  I suspect voice will have 
> to be the new input to this new desktop GUI.
i'm not sure that voice is the way. but i'm very bad as a prophet. ;-)

> I agree that customization should be made really easy, but what 
> percentage of users ever configure their settings themselves now? 
>   I bet it's a negligible percentage.  What I think is more likely 
> is that they will pay someone to configure the component desktop 
> you envision to suit them, but that person won't necessarily be a 
> developer, more likely a power user.
that's 'cause people need to click some obscure checkboxes to change
something. yet if they can just drag a color from color picker to paint
element, move some parts of UI around, change size and all this without
digging in "preferences" windows (which aren't very appealing to
average Joe), they doing this. it's all about making simple things
simple and complex things possible. ;-)

when people see how easy they can change some visual aspects, they may
eventually try to go deeper. add a button with a simple text command.
add another button with two commands. and so on. ;-)

sure, most people will just recolor their UIs and change some layout.
but that's important too, 'cause small things can have a big impact.

> I agree that the software business likely just didn't do it 
> right, but I doubt that's all of it.
ah, sure, that's not the *only* reason. everything has more than one
reason. ;-)

> Any component system isn't 
> going to be as fast and efficient as a bespoke system.
it's a common misconception based on wrong attempts to build component
systems. having one uniform language (thus dropping attempts to build
"one-size-fits-all" system) makes component system very fast. at least
not slower than any other system with dynamic libraries, and sometimes
even faster. Oberon system was really fast, even with it's very poor
compiler.

the key is the solid language foundation, and D can give us this.

> I've loaded up a chapter from this pdf book about it:
> http://www.cslab.pepperdine.edu/warford/ComputingFundamentals/
> I'll take a look.
you can download BCB itself, it has nice dox and full sources. and it
works under wine.
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