While COM/ActiveX is available to some extent on Windows, Mac, and a
very small subset of unixes (Solaris??), I think we need a better
mechanism.

The biggest problem is that the whole web paradigm is such a poor way of
navigating through information in the first place. Using a web browser
is much like having to read a book by owning a whole copy of the book
for each page; you read the first page in the first book, then set it
down and pick up the next copy to read the second page, and so on. HTML
was designed to provide static text; nothing more. Now, in search of new
ways to separate people from their money, we have had an incredible
number of kludges added to the browsers- activex, plugins, "Dynamic"
html, xml, etc. yet we're still stuck with a basically inflexible and
poorly laid out interface. Someone once described MS-DOS as CPM modified
after hearing of rumors of Unix; the web browser interface is
winfile.exe as modified from rumors of Smalltalk. Do we really want to
cripple a distributed Squeak by tying it into the web paradigm? Or can
we brainstorm something different? 

Now, I don't have any suggestions; Closest I've come to a distributed
app is client/server database work which is almost as bad as the web
from the point of view of keeping individual images independent, yet
able to work together. I don't know what it is, but there has got to be
something better.

William

William Barnett-Lewis
wlewis at mailbag.com 
-- 
Live without fear; your Creator loves you       
as a mother. Go in peace to follow the good	    
road and may God's blessing be with you always. 
St. Claire