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From: Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Air traffic control system in Java
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 00:10:51 -0800 (PST)
Date: 2011-03-05T00:10:51-08:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <de7759c8-6f51-44e1-a6a1-d12017f07db1@o21g2000prn.googlegroups.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: op.vruzrrcrlzeukk@jellix.jlfencey.com

On Mar 5, 12:15 am, "Vinzent Hoefler"
<0439279208b62c95f1880bf0f8776...@t-domaingrabbing.de> wrote:
> Shark8 wrote:
> > On Mar 4, 10:15 pm, "Vinzent Hoefler"
> > <0439279208b62c95f1880bf0f8776...@t-domaingrabbing.de> wrote:
>
> > Interesting you should mention Oberon; I just installed it into a VM
> > to play with.
> > {VirtualPC is free now, so if you're using Windows there is little
> > disincentive
> > to throwing odd/interesting OSes into a VM.}
>
> I'm happy user of VirtualBox sind a couple of major versions. ;)


And that diminishes my pointing out that VirtualPC is free how?
{You're just making my point that it is *easy*/*cheap* to have VMs.}

> >> Considering what I regularly read in the appropriate newsgroups, even a big
> >> library like the VCL of Delphi is not nearly enough to satisfy its users,
> >> there are a lot of add-ons, third party tools and hacks to get what they
> >> want (and Delphi is even just Windows-only, so we're not even talking problems
> >> of cross-platform GUI).
>
> > Delphi's VCL is actually one of the best GUI-builders I've seen...
> > there was
> > also the Kylix port of the VCL to the Linux environs which fizzled
> > out, but
> > iy *WAS* there.
>
> Well, FreePascal has Lazarus, that's probably more cross-platform. :)

Possibly, Though I wasn't able to get it to work last time I tried it.

> Yet, it doesn't drive a lot of users to use it (at least there complaining
> about the same as the Ada community), so it doesn't seem to be a major
> gain.
>
> > Given that the VCL is basically an object-oriented wrapper of the
> > Windows [graphics] API
>
> And still, a lot of regular users are /not/ satisfied with what the VCL
> offers. And it's already huge (thus, nothing I would put in a standards
> document).

I didn't say we should enshrine the VCL as a standard. I *DID* say
that
the VCL presents us with an intriguing possible opportunity to
implement
a GUI hierarchy.

>
> > it seems to me that Ada *could* be used similarly and
> > in an
> > even better manner: an object-oriented hierarchy-among-specifications
> > which
> > have their bodies chosen as per the platform being developed.
>
> Yes, it is surely *possible*. But it also means that you probably have to
> trade look-and-feel against the portability. And that means, users of
> your Ada-GUI will complain about the differences, will not use it or
> "patch" it according to their specific needs.

True enough. However, the lack-of-GUI may be more weighty than a
GUI-I-Have-To-Tweak, especially in the minds of Ada-newbies.

> IMO, there's no point in standardizing such a beast, if you can't get it
> right.

Ah, but I believe that you *can* "get it right."
Scroll-bars should scroll; edit-boxes should be editable; spin-edits
should
constrain themselves to valid [numeric] values which are modified by
the
attached arrow-buttons.

> After all, there's GtkAda, that's probably as cross-platform as it will
> ever get and yet it doesn't convince users to use Ada.
>
> (Honestly, I don't know why someone would want to use Java for that,
> Java doesn't even have real callbacks, but well ...)

Java --> *Shudder*

> >> So if someone expects such a beast can be standardized at all, I'd call him
> >> overly optimistic at least.
>
> > OpenGL and PotScript/PDF are standard and [true] cross-platform, no?
> > Couldn't a standard GUI therefore be built upon them?
>
> I seriously doubt that there are any OpenGL implementation or
> Postscript-interpreters for systems like VxWorks or Integrity. ;)

I was working on an PostScript interpreter as a bit of a hobby-ish
aside. All in Ada, it was all in Ada but was destroyed when my HD
dies. (It was a non-critical/untested code-base so wasn't backed-up.)

OpenGL is a bit interesting as it can be *massively* [IMO] improved
by a) restricting the inputs to valid values, and b) overloading the
functions so as to be rid of the nasty "3fv"-type suffixes.
{The OpenGL standard allows for just such an approach using languages
which support overloading.}

> Wasn't there a standard GUI description language (based on XML?) a couple
> of years ago? What happened to it?

Hopefully it died a slow and horrid death.
{I don't like XML at all; the *only* good things about it are the "/>"
single-tag closure and that attributes *must* be quoted, IMO.}

> And as mentioned above. To put something like that into a language standard,
> you have to keep minimalistic (remember that the vendors need to implement
> it and cost of implementation is also an issue in terms of standardization).
> But being minimalistic also means, that nobody will use it due to lack of
> (necessary) features.

That's where the beauty of the VCL shines: a 'minimal' implementation
may
be extended as needed. {And these extensions are how more complex
types are
introduced/elaborated to the user.}

> IME, if a minimalistic GUI is needed, embed a webserver into your application
> and let it start up the browser. This served me well so far. Virtually everybody
> knows how to use a browser, and in the days of Web 2.0 such an approach is
> probably even "en vogue".


I think Ada could get the upper hand if a) the embedded webserver was
standard,
b) the events [server-side] were easy-to-handle, and c) Ada
programmers
encouraged/evangelized the method.



  parent reply	other threads:[~2011-03-05  8:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 84+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-03-03 20:46 Air traffic control system in Java Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 21:01 ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-03 21:02   ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 21:12     ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-08  7:26       ` Martin Krischik
2011-03-16 18:21         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 21:01 ` KK6GM
2011-03-03 21:13 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 21:27   ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 21:34     ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 21:35       ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 21:44         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 21:58           ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 22:16             ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 23:29               ` Robert A Duff
2011-03-04  2:56                 ` anon
2011-03-05  5:31                 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-03 22:36           ` Georg Bauhaus
2011-03-03 22:40             ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04  0:44               ` Georg Bauhaus
2011-03-03 22:50             ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-07 12:26     ` jimmaureenrogers
2011-03-07 15:09       ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-03 22:50 ` Rick
2011-03-03 23:00   ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04  1:07     ` KK6GM
2011-03-04 17:07       ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04 17:24         ` KK6GM
2011-03-04 17:36           ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04 18:00             ` KK6GM
2011-03-04 18:11               ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04 18:18                 ` KK6GM
2011-03-04 18:24                   ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04 18:51                     ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-04 20:18                       ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-04 20:23                         ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-04 21:31                           ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-04 21:44                             ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-04 22:08                               ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-05  1:08                               ` Randy Brukardt
2011-03-05  5:15                                 ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-05  6:45                                   ` Shark8
2011-03-05  7:15                                     ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-05  7:37                                       ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-05  7:50                                         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-05  8:28                                         ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-05 23:32                                           ` Rick
2011-03-06  9:21                                             ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-06 22:47                                               ` Rick
2011-03-05  9:15                                         ` Ludovic Brenta
2011-03-05  9:27                                           ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-05  9:32                                             ` Ludovic Brenta
2011-03-05 11:37                                         ` Peter C. Chapin
2011-03-05 20:17                                         ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-05 20:18                                         ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-05 21:58                                         ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-06  0:13                                         ` GTK Ada, was: " Simon Clubley
2011-03-06  0:47                                         ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-06 16:23                                           ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-06 17:09                                             ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-06 21:59                                               ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-06 23:52                                                 ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-07  0:07                                                   ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-06 17:00                                         ` Jeffrey Carter
2011-03-06 17:54                                         ` Tero Koskinen
2011-03-05  8:07                                       ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-05  8:14                                         ` Shark8
2011-03-05  8:36                                           ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-05  8:10                                       ` Shark8 [this message]
2011-03-05  9:01                                         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-06 23:22                                           ` Shark8
2011-03-07 15:27                                         ` Julian Leyh
2011-03-05 11:20                                 ` Peter C. Chapin
2011-03-07  5:06                                 ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-04 20:18                       ` Nasser M. Abbasi
2011-03-04 20:31                         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-04 17:14     ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-04 17:26       ` Hyman Rosen
2011-03-05  5:25         ` Vinzent Hoefler
2011-03-04 17:34       ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2011-03-04 18:17       ` Shark8
2011-03-04 23:40     ` Rick
2011-03-04  8:26   ` Ludovic Brenta
2011-03-06 22:23 ` KK6GM
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