🚀 go-pugleaf

	I would like to put my two cents into the CTB vs. Comm Programs
discussion.
	For many months now the commercial communications developers have been
discussion amongst ourselves (yes, I do talk to my competitors :-) about the 
merits and demerits(??) of the CTB and the general consencous is that the CTB
is, of course, a good thing both for us and for our users.  It will make it
easier for us to add new emulators and protocols as well as provide connections
we may not even have thought possible - HOWEVER it is certainly not the end all
and is FAR from perfect for many of us.
	The biggest problem with doing development for it now and probably the
biggest reason that WK11 and MPII3.0 do not support it is that IT IS NOT 
AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC!  It would certainly not be a good marketing practice
to develop a product using someone else's technology and then have to hold the
product until the other product ships...Once the CTB becomes avail, will you
start to see versions of commercial comm products that use it - sure - but
who, what. when, etc. is anybody's guess.
	There are also some serious limitiations of the CTB for many developers
that have not been mentioned before and have even been glossed over. Among them
are the inability to properly integrate with a scripting/macro language. There
is not way when supporting the CTB to say something like 'Set Terminal Parameter
Columns to 80'.  The only way to set the parameters of a tool is either via a 
dialog (no good during automatic scripting!) or via a config string which is
specific to the tool - if the tool changes then the string changes and the
and command will fail - but the script relies on that settings....
	Another problem has to do with graphics terminals - contrary to the
docs in the CTB stuff, you can not fully implement support for most/all graphics
terminals.  Go ahead - try doing a Tek 4014, for example.... Also the question
comes up as to how ana pplication with a scripting language interacts with a
graphics terminal...Can/Should you be able to do something like 'When Pixel is
Green.. or Wait till Square is 10x10?'  Or am I out in left field on this one?
	I personally have nothing against the CTB, I think it is an excellent
idea and it is very much like things other have devised like Juri, myself, etc.
I am hoping that future versions will solved some of the above problems (and
others not mentioned) but for a first release I think they did a very good job



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Leonard Rosenthol        |  GEnie : MACgician
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