Screen shots for Squeak.org

Bijan Parsia bparsia at email.unc.edu
Mon Jun 21 05:40:27 UTC 1999


--On Monday, June 21, 1999, 1:13 AM -0400 "Andrew C. Greenberg"
<werdna at gate.net> wrote:

[snipped argument and counter re: open source culture]

Whilst I believe there to be some equivical use of 'culture', I'd just like
to interject, as 'tis my wont, that at least one goal for Squeak is to be
an, and I *love* this phrase, "exquisite personal computing environment".
For it to be *equisite*, I think it needs to be both adaptive and
adaptible. This holds for UI (whether G, or otherwise). It also will need
to be consistent and inconsistent to *just* the right measure. Whatever the
heck that is :)

> > So much for the theoretical arguments.  Customers and users don't 
> really want this stuff so much either.  Substantial evidence in 
> modern times confirms that markets (this was all about "looks matter" 
> and marketing, right?) reject in large part radical departures from 
> UI's, and except perhaps for the occasional backdrop image and mouse 
> selections, spend very little energy modifying their "environment." 

Weeeee-el, I'm not sure about this. There seems to be a fairly large market
for macro/button/launcher utilities in the Mac market alone, which, we must
admit, is one of the more stringently consistent systems. Of course,
*rigid* *radical* change is typically violently rejected.

> Institutional clients, in particular, find substantive 
> individualization a massive headache to maintain, and customers 
> generally don't really want it for their benefit.  Except for the 
> "Kai's fill-in-the-blank" products, which are by their nature 
> graphically oriented, most roll-your-own interface products in recent 
> times have failed.

The web? :) Of course, that's a massive, horrible step backwards.

[snip]

There seem to be at least three important factors:
        1) There must be a strong standard interface system, and rigid,
arbitrary, programmer-imposed departures are to be violently shunned.
        2) "Drop in" alternatives to the standard interface is acceptible,
espeically if it is easy to get back to the standard.
        3) *Idiosyncrantic* modificantion to the standand interface if
often rather highly desired, but can get very frustrating if a) you can't
"bring" your *own* customizations with you where-ever you go, and b) you
can't avoid other people's customizations.

Squeak's portability make 3a solvable. 1 & 2 are likewise solvable (I
think).  How exactly, I'm not sure :)

Of course, all this refers to *intra*-Squeak customization. What, I
suspect, *most* people will want out of Squeak UI customization is
seamlessness with their *current* UI (e.g., how do you make a "real Mac
app" with Squeak). I'm not sure that Squeak is *ever* going to shine here
and yet retain it's other virtures (including cross platformness). However,
that doesn't bother me, personally :)

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.





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