From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Lucio De Re To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] re: how people learn things (was architectures) Message-ID: <20010713123726.W22003@cackle.proxima.alt.za> References: <200107130915.LAA03800@boris.cd.chalmers.se> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <200107130915.LAA03800@boris.cd.chalmers.se>; from Laura Creighton on Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 11:15:59AM +0200 Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 12:37:27 +0200 Topicbox-Message-UUID: c972368e-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Fri, Jul 13, 2001 at 11:15:59AM +0200, Laura Creighton wrote: > > Actually, there is somebody out here using Plan 9 to not program who has > wanted a user interface change. Kenji was disatisfied with Plan 9's > way to view maps of planets. > Take five :-( So many concepts, so little ability to put them across! Plan 9 has amongst the most flexible interfaces available. That they are similar, yet sometimes contradictory shows no fear of heading in the wrong direction and then backtracking. In fact, Plan 9 is just a large interface experiment, looked from that perspective: Rio, Sam, Acme, Page, the Plumber, processes as filesystems, the CPU server, you name it. It will be a while still before somebody actually freezes the _presentation_ interface so that one can invest in developing applications. Whether it will be the Gnome by any other name or a totally novel approach, it has to stand still long enough for programmers to take aim, something presently more true of Inferno than of Plan 9. Discussion in this mailing list has always petered off without conclusion, so perhaps we need to look at Plan 9 as strictly a bootstrapper for further development, a tool capable of much greater refinement, a rough diamond waiting for the right cutter to bring its potential to the outside. Until that explosion, my guess is that it must continue to develop with the programmer (and the documenter, and other members of the bootstrapping team) in the cross-hairs. And in my opinion that is the interface we should concentrate on. ++L