>I was trying to put forward the following:
>
>Proposition: Either do something radically different from current 
>user interfaces or use those interfaces.

It would be helpful to provide arguments in support of that 
proposition, rather than merely to state it, and then to aver once 
more that the proposition should be applied in the case of Squeak.

There is a fundamental difference between Squeak and Java, 
Python/TkInter and Tk/Tcl: Squeak delivers on the promise of 
"write-once, run everywhere."

Its execution is pixel-for-pixel identical cross platforms.  This is, 
IMHO, a good thing -- indeed a very good thing.  Having worked in the 
gaming business, where the costs of ports in multimedia games are 
ENORMOUS, I am awed by the ease this can be accomplished in Squeak.

As most regular readers are by now tired of hearing, I wrote my 
wife's Birthday present some years ago in Squeak on an Office PC: a 
multi-media game with music and sound.  I downloaded it the day 
before onto her iMac (yeah, I tried it a few times with earlier 
versions in truth, just to be sure -- but it doesn't make for such a 
great story), and it ran pixel-and-sound-identically without change.

This is scary cool.  It is a wonderful thing.  And it owes much to 
some of the fundamental design principles of eschewing design 
principles at every opportunity.  Almost everything is written in 
Smalltalk -- and thus almost everything works almost everywhere.

Using native windows -- even abstracting so that similar paradigms 
cross-platform can be used, cost Tkinter and Java dearly in terms of 
real write-once-run-everywhereness.

Of course, there are other arguments that may lead one to prefer 
native widgets.  At the end of the day, I suppose, in the end, it 
depends why you are using the system.  Thus, the axioms leading you 
to your conclusion should begin there -- rather than with the ipse 
dixit conclusion that native widgets should be supported.
-- 
Andrew C. Greenberg		acg at netwolves.com
V.P. Eng., R&D, 		813.885.2779 (office)
Netwolves Corporation		813.885.2380 (facsimile)
www.netwolves.com

Please use werdna at mucow.com instead of werdna at gate.net