🚀 go-pugleaf

"Tony" <aoganesi_a^t_yahoo_._com> wrote:

> Lori,
> 
> Thanks a lot for chiming in on this topic. It's always
> a pleasure to read your posts.
> 
> First of all, I fully agree with you on the topic of
> having solid requirements before one embarks on the
> journey of UI building (or any software task for that
> matter).

That is only way anyone will have a successful application.
Failure to properly plan =failure to implement

> 
> 
> However, what I am trying to suggest is that in my experience
> designing a good number of _business_  (and I do want to stress the
> word business) applications for many users for the last 10 years
> this need for creating " ... screens that look good at various
> resultions with user-customizable font sizes ..." is highly overhyped.
>
Disagree and I agree with Lori. Not all fonts are going to be enabled or
available for all alternate systems.

True, you need to use the best as possible type scenario, but TTFs do look
somewhat different on divergent platforms. Pixel counts for fonts are
approximates in the TTF or Adobe categories, not exact.
 

> With all these great tools at our disposal we tend to marginalize the
> XY layout and delegate to it the tasks of "throwing something together
> quickly that looks good". I disagree. I think all other Layout Managers
> should be marginalized because they solve the problem of a 0.1% of
> business users who want to use a different font size or a non-standard
> resolution.
> 
Hate to be the sounder of contrary opinion :), but XYLayout is, IMHO, almost
useless except for quick prototypes. XYLayout is even going to appear
differently using the same OS but different graphic systems.

 
> This is exactly the issue worth discussing. I have supervised several
> programmers who were re-training themselves from VB to Java and Layout
> Managers have always been the hard part to grasp and apply. 

Agreed.. Most difficult for any developers who have used tools like Delphi
or VB to grasp initially. Part of this problem is that they are used to
working on one and only one OS.

> Now let us 
> stop for a minute and think why it is the case... not because these
> people are not as bright as the Java codes ... certainly not because
> Layout Managers are rocket science, -- in my opinion it is because the
> benefit of usage is _not apparent_. Now once you put on the glasses
> of "solving the problem of various resolutions and font sizes" Layout
> Managers start to make sense. :-)
> 
If someone is using Java to create Platform specific apps, then perhaps Java
is not the best to use (unless Web based, where Java is superb). J2SE's
real benefit is xplatform. Now we could discuss the benefits of XPlatform
development (I think especially in this age, is it foolish to hedge ones
bets on a single OS target, even if you are targeting only one today). If
your developers need to learn that we do not live in a one OS fits all
world, perhaps a real IT world course might help. :)

Once the developers learn that they are NOT writing for one OS either now or
for the future, then they should come to understand the reason(s) for
Layout Managers. If they do not see why they exist after learning the
nuances of XPlatform GUIs, then perhaps they are not the best candidates
for XPlatform development to begin with, without further instruction or
real world Enterprise experience.

Seriously, my users do not use one OS, nor do they desire to. I work as a
Tech/Team Lead for a 48,000 employee/user community. Many of them resent
having to be forced to use just Windows, or just Mac, or just Linux. Can't
say I blame them either. Personally, Linux makes more sense for my corp
desktop, since all of my development will be deployed to Unix servers. 
Linux to Unix = much better deployment than Windows to Unix. However, we
also have some developers doing DOT.NEt development. Windows works better
for them. We have some graphics and advertising people who swear by Mac.


When you consider the Internet world, it is a BAD BAD choice to target one
OS, generally. It is OK to target one OS when you are doing utility or
platform specific low level stuff, but again IMHO, foolish for general
business or consumer app development.

Of course you or anyone else is free to disagree :)