🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <130335@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> anantha%ravi@Sun.COM (Anantha Srirama) writes:
>> o GUI builders - What tools are built on top of these toolkits to allow an
>>     application builder an interactive tool to design and test a GUI?
>>     How versatile are these tools?
>
>Sun has announced/demoed GUIDE (Graphical User Interface Development Env.)  It
>should be shipping as a developers release pretty soon, weeks not months.  This
>package lets you build interfaces conforming to OpenLook specification.

"Weeks not Months" -- you really expect us to believe such announcements
after the way openwindows' release has been delayed??

>I
>don't believe Motif has any such tool to build interfaces.

Motif does have a tool to build interfaces, prototype applications
interactively, etc. take a look at my WINTERP -- An object-oriented rapid
prototyping, development and delivery environment for building
user-customizable applications with the OSF Motif UI Toolkit.  WINTERP is
available for free, and can be used for free in products. You can get it
via anonymous ftp from expo.lcs.mit.edu oldcontrib/winterp.tar.Z (see also
oldcontrib/winterp.README for introductory info...)

Aside from my newborn baby, there's also the OSF's UIL (gag, cough, retch)
and Visual Edge/HP's UIMX (a spiffy Motif-based direct manipulation
builder.) ...

>I don't know the technical merits/demerits of each of these GUIs.  But from
>what I have been reading about OSF, Motif may be the next generation of vapor-
>ware....

Gee, that's what they've been saying about OpenLook too. Technical merits
aside, OpenLook apps have the additional disadvantage of being butt-ugly --
I distinctly remember puking multicolored chunks after seeing the OpenLook
specs for the first time; seeing and playing with OpenLook applications
confirmed my suspicions....

>For all practical purposes OSF is melting away just like US Memories.
>Major papers/publications/journals have been talking about this for a couple
>of months now, 

No matter which way the politics of OSF go, you can bet that companies that
have invested significant efforts in the Motif toolkit will be offering
Motif as supported parts of their products for a good long time to come...
HP, for example, is shipping Motif 1.0 (sans UIL, thank god) right now in
HPUX 7.0.

If your comment has to do with the various management turmoils that have
been reported in the trade rags, I can quickly point my finger back to SUN
and ask pointed questions about the future viability of SUN given the
number of resignations and management turnovers that have recently been
reported.

But the politics of large organizations aren't what we're talking about
here. Everybody knows that the peter principle is in full effect in every
large organization. Fortunately, we are able to put up with management as a
necessary evil, and get on with technical progress ... It's the grass-roots
perception and adoptation of technologies that count, and in that respect,
OpenLook is losing. Motif is out there, available and being used.

I very much doubt that SUN's competitors, (e.g. DEC, HP) will be moving on
to a new toolkit in the near future, and they certainly won't be moving on
to OpenLook. Everybody is sick of rewriting their applications to fit the
latest toolkit, so any of the minute technical differences between toolkits
won't matter as long as the toolkit is perceived as being standard, widely
used, and good-enough-to-do-the-job. The masses seem to think that Motif
fits that bill. I certainly do.

> the battle may be over with SVR4/OpenLook winning in the second
>round by technical knock-out.

Please elaborate on the technical knockout. I thought you just said "I
don't know the technical merits/demerits of each of these GUIs".

>Seriously consider the availability/support of
>Motif in future before you decide on what system you are going to use.

Likewise for OpenLook. Likewise for anything.

Disclaimer: The above statements are my own only. They are not an official
view of HP.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	    Niels Mayer -- hplabs!mayer -- mayer@hplabs.hp.com
		  Human-Computer Interaction Department
		       Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
			      Palo Alto, CA.
				   *