Re: RSG

["Dan Kaminsky" <effugas best com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: George <jirka@5z.com>
To: gnome-gui-list@gnome.org <gnome-gui-list@gnome.org>
Date: Monday, August 03, 1998 2:05 AM
Subject: Re: RSG


>On Sun, Aug 02, 1998 at 12:56:29PM -0700, Dan Kaminsky wrote:
>> Good amount of drool factor going on here.  Couple suggestions:
>>
>> 1)  Browse menus.  Don't know a filetype by heart?  Look at an index of
>> filetypes.  Don't know your directory structure by heart?  Look at an
index
>> of directories.  Don't know regex's by heart?  Hurm, maybe link to a
>> screenplay of a regex tutorial, or a listing of possible situations one
>> would use regex.
>
>the thing is basicaly in a state of abandonment ... I jsut made something
>quick that works .. and have no real intention of maintaining such a prog
>... the two manus you see on the screenshot are only 2 out of about 15
>possible which you add from he menu


That's the most fun part of our job (for us) and the most infuriating part
of it (for you)...we don't really care what the present state of code *is*,
just what it *should* be :-)    Note, if something is impossible, it
probably shouldn't be worked on :-D

That's why I'm very excited about Xlab.  It's enough of a proof of concept
*right now* to say, yes, we can say GNOME should use screenplays, and yup,
it'll probably be one of those Defining Things that makes GNOME *really*
popular.

>> 2)  LESS WHITESPACE :-)
>
>I like whitespace


Yeah but Whitespace makes GNOME look far less stylized and far more hacked
together.  Go shove a few screenshots of Tk apps at users and then show them
some 95/NT apps.  I wager the vast majority will say the 95/NT apps look
more slick and stylized.  Whitespace should be used JUDICIOUSLY, not just
because.

This is something Microsoft gets right.  Mac too, to some degree, but Mac
fonts are generally too big :-)

>> 3)  (long term) I'd like a command line mode for this app, so that the
>> runbox could link to it easily.
>
>command line mode is "find ... -print | xargs grep ..."
>
>no need to invent a tool here .. it's just a frontend to those tools


Interesting concept for a self-documenting interface here...any time an app
just calls some CLI command, that command gets shoved down into the runbox.
Whatcha think?  Interesting way to train the user how to use CLI?

>  The following implements RSA in perl and is illegal to export from the
US:
>
>          #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
>          $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
>          lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)


And they say Perl is difficult to read...yup, Larry Wall is one hell of a
linguist.