From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id WAA19669 for caml-red; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 22:15:37 +0100 (MET) Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA14376 for ; Fri, 9 Feb 2001 18:54:50 +0100 (MET) Received: from localhost.localdomain (kenny11.zip.com.au [61.8.18.139]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f19HslP19330 for ; Fri, 9 Feb 2001 18:54:48 +0100 (MET) Received: from ozemail.com.au (IDENT:root@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.9.3/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA08098; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 04:50:03 +1100 Message-ID: <3A842DCB.1A32D8DF@ozemail.com.au> Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 04:50:03 +1100 From: John Max Skaller X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: frouaix@liquidmarket.com CC: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: OCaml's long range graphical direction? References: <200102082001.f18K1VH08374@nez-perce.inria.fr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: weis@pauillac.inria.fr Francois Rouaix wrote: > I actually think that none of CamlTk/LablTK/LabelGTK fit the most common need > in GUI development. In many cases, it still strikes me as utterly boring and > time consuming to write *code* to put up menus, buttons, dialogs and such. Of > course, from time to time, when you need some form of widget that is a bit > original, programming will be useful. But that doesn't happen a lot, unless > you write something that needs complex rendering or interaction. > Back in 1985, Apple started using resources to define interfaces. More > recently, Palm used resources again to define interfaces. More recently, > Mozilla folks used XML based representation (XUL) to define interfaces, with a > GUI level scripting language (JavaScript/ECMAScript). Ah, but the specification of the resources is nothing more than yet another programming language, and a seriously deficient one usually (for example, not Turing complete). Furthermore, it is evident that this second programming language must be _bound_ to the algorithmic one, and that binding is invariably fragile and a serious problem. That is, I think there is a downside to separating functionality and appearance. As any serious game player knows, the two are intimately connected. -- John (Max) Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au 10/1 Toxteth Rd Glebe NSW 2037 Australia voice: 61-2-9660-0850 checkout Vyper http://Vyper.sourceforge.net download Interscript http://Interscript.sourceforge.net