GUIs - A Modest Proposal

[Arndt Roger Schneider]

lkcl schrieb:

> [snip]
>
> it's the exact same thing for SVG image file-format.  i'm
>_definitely_ not convinced that "SVG the image fileformat" is The One
>True Way to design images - but i'm equally definitely convinced of
>the power of SVG manipulation libraries which allow for the creation
>SVG images using declarative programming.
>
>  
>

You rather severly underestimate the impact from SVG!
1. SVG is a complete visualization system and not an fancy way to create 
icons.
    SVG and SMIL are an extreme powerful environment. With it's
    possible to create(design) sophisticated graphical and interactive 
--resolution independent--
    applictions without resorting to javascript or direct DOM manipulations.
    Javascript or other languages are still necessary to feed data into 
an SVG
    visualization, but not for much more. Further more SVG and the GPU are
    a natural combination.

2. Many of CSS shiny new features --such as animation originate
   from SVG.
3. SVG-Print: Printing is one of the biggest problems in
   the current IT-landscape. I do not want to install printer
   drivers on each telephon I own, neither on any other device --mobile
   or not. The printer must contain a computer running an OS and has to
   handle an agreed upon page description language (Xml based)...


Using HTML/CSS/DOM/javascript for application building:
Well, yes can be done. HTML is however text oriented; each
application entirely based on this technology will be satured
with text. HTML works reasonable well with applications of the past
two decades, but the importance of text is dwindling and other
graphical means of communication become more and more relevant.

> but, all that having been said, and returning to "HTML and CSS (the
>fileformats)", there's a lot to be said for convincing people who are
>stuck in those worlds of the benefits and freedom of declarative
>programming... _without_ having to get involved directly in
>javascript.
>
>  
>

Any User Interface should be pre-determined;
this concept allows the consequent separation of
application logic and presentation. It's not only important
for Web-applications!

>>that web apps are about to take over
>>the world, etc. There is still a place for GUI toolkits 
>>
>>that
>>are not based on the DOM,
>>    
>>
>
> that there definitely are.
>
>  
>
>>or whatever the W3C technology of the month is.
>>    
>>
>
> :) don't underestimate how much time and money is going into the W3C
>standards!  and remember, someone's got to implement them, so the
>actual proof of the pudding is not what the W3C thinks but whether the
>technology ends up actually in the hands of users and is successful
>_for users_.
>
> l.
>
>  
>
The mony part is definitly important. Tk is actually a good example for
the working of money-politics (the absence thereof).

-roger