On 5/12/06, Bert Freudenberg <bert at impara.de> wrote:
> Am 12.05.2006 um 03:17 schrieb Kendall Shaw:
>
> > The fact that squeak has it's own desktop, effectively makes it
> > it's own platform for the purposes of desktop applications.
> >
> > If your program doesn't look exactly like every other program and
> > use exactly the same procedure they've had to use for every
> > program, then game over, you might as well not have even bothered
> > to write the program.

This is a real problem.  It doesn't stop everybody from using Squeak,
but it stops many people from using Squeak.

> So Firefox shouldn't have been written? iTunes? Winamp? Etc.?

Firefox is different from earlier browsers, but it fits seamlessly
into Windows.

As a long time Mac user, I thought that iTunes was a brilliant Mac
application.  I never read a manual, which is one of the tests of a
good Mac application.

I have never used Winamp.  But I think that the first two are not
counterarguments.

> > I don't think you could easily distribute it as an rpm or a debian
> > package etc. and deal with dependencies between squeak
> > applications. I can't use installshield to integrate it into
> > someone's squeak applications.
>
> I think your utterly wrong here.

So, explain how.  It is impolite to just say "you are wrong" and not
to explain why.

> > For all practical purposes, a desktop application written in squeak
> > will only be used by squeak programmers. Note the term: "desktop
> > application".
>
> And I think you'll be proven wrong with Sophie:

I hope Sophie will be an exception.  But even if it is a success, it
does not prove that the general public readily accepts applications
that look like Squeak.  If you do something profound enough, people
are willing to compromize to get it.

-Ralph Johnson