From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Limbo Tk FAQ?
Message-ID: <20010525104510.N21254@cackle.proxima.alt.za>
References: <20010524185028.F1E14199D5@mail.cse.psu.edu> <20010525065834.K21254@cackle.proxima.alt.za> <44225839029.20010525084415@proweb.co.uk>
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In-Reply-To: <44225839029.20010525084415@proweb.co.uk>; from Matt H on Fri, May 25, 2001 at 08:44:15AM +0100
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 10:45:10 +0200
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On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 08:44:15AM +0100, Matt H wrote:
> 
> VB is very easy. Drag & drop controls then double click to get the
> wrapper to call it you end up with
> 
> Sub Button1.Click()
>        Button1.Caption = "I've been clicked"
> End Sub
> 
The question is: "Is this the answer to Geoff's prayers?"

In a sense (at least as far as John Ousterhout goes, see his paper
on scripting languages which you may still be able to find at
www.scriptics.com) it is, in that it removes the drudgery of
nitty-gritty design, but at the price of flexibility.

There's something to be said for adopting the Microsoft idiom,
because most users are familiar with, but there's also the risk
that a lot will go uninvented because no further exploration is
taking place, and we can't find out what we're missing.

Developers, of course, are another, totally different, kettle of
fish.

I fear I repeat myself, but to me the idea of an embeddable language
like tcl looks more and more appetising.  Unlike the original Tk,
I believe Limbo/Tk is not expandable, at least not to the extent
of being able to define new widgets and operations upon them.  I
haven't read that part of the (2Ed) Inferno manual properly, though.

My dream might well be Charles Forsyth's nightmare: tcl embedded
in limbo applications.  We could certainly revise tcl in the process,
but the fundamental principles are sound (in my uneducated opinion).

++L