From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-Id: <200012200058.AAA18825@whitecrow.demon.co.uk>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Re: Future of Plan9 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 19 Dec 2000 16:07:52 GMT."
             <91nt3g$t2f$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 
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From: Steve Kilbane <steve@whitecrow.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 00:58:51 +0000
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> I like Plan9, I think it has good draft - networking, security,
> namespace (good idea!)...
> But now it needs applications.

It already has some. Or do you mean, "applications that I want to
use"? That's generally harder to fulfil, for any value of "I".

The application card usually means that someone wants to do on
Plan 9 what they already do on their PC. Getting into specifics,
this needs file-format compatibility and/or user-interface
familiarity. What's the point? It's easier and cheaper for the
majority to just use a PC.

On the other hand, if "application" is interpreted as
"functionality which fits in the same niche", without being obsessed
with compatibility, then fair enough. Plan 9 already has some such
applications; where there are gaps, there are opportunities to
reconsider what a user in that niche really needs.

> BTW: Is anybody going to port tcl/tk lib to Plan9? Or anything else
> which
> will make easy to create menus and buttons and others in apps?

This is my point: acme doesn't use menus or buttons, and it doesn't
need tcl or tk to produce applications which use it as the user
interface. But it does affect the style of interface you can have.
acme doesn't have graphics, so you can't do a WYSIWYG text processor,
but you could provide an interface to a TeX system with all sorts of
nifty tools. So the question is not what you think you need, but what
do you *really* need?

steve