Re: [Caml-list] Re: Feeding the OCaml GUI troll

From: yoann padioleau <padator@wanadoo.fr>
To: skaller <skaller@users.sourceforge.net>
Cc: Ville-Pertti Keinonen <will@exomi.com>,
	Matt Gushee <mgushee@havenrock.com>,
	caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Re: Feeding the OCaml GUI troll
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 13:10:05 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <E4408A0F-7C4F-431F-BFF3-C2308153EC08@wanadoo.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1125664781.7262.51.camel@localhost.localdomain>

>
> IMHO the *key* problem with GUI's -- and why real (TM) developers
> hate using them -- is the lack of automation: unix script
> sucks, but it does provide automation. If we're going to make
> a new GUI it has to have full automation capability.
>

I am not sure I understand what you think by automation. But indeed  
what I like
with shell script is that I can automate some tasks over traditionnal  
programs (or even other scripts).
I can do some "for", "while" over programs, ...
That is because the interface of a command line is simpe,  stdin and  
stdout  with text as value.

But in fact there is some works do to the same with GUI. AppleScript  
is one such thing. You can do
script that send commands to apps and so you can automate some task.  
The problem is that the application
must be AppleScript aware, and that you have to know what it exports.

I once had a great idea,  "let's make the interface of a GUI  
application  be its interface" :)
That is let's be able to write in a sctipt:
  tell Musicplayer
    MENUBAR(OPEN("/tmp/staying-alive.mp3"))

Unfortunatly Apple already had the same idea,
http://www.apple.com/applescript/uiscripting/03.html

> The only way I can think of to do that is to base the
> core components of the GUI on Category Theory -- for example
> have 'product' widgets and 'sum' widgets which represent
> a collection and a set of alternatives, respectively,
>

Interesting, but it sounds like we have already this in current GUI  
toolkit (ok they dont use terms from category theory).
The product is called  boxing  in gtk (and tk I guess) and the sum is  
represented via the typing systems, the widget all inherits
from the same base class.

> and a standard way to combine them graphically.
>

Well you have vbox (vertical box) to pack them guess what,  
vertically,  and hbox.
And you have various options.

> -- 
> John Skaller <skaller at users dot sourceforge dot net>
>
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