Fw: my shortlist of GNOME wishes

["Dave Neuer" <dneuer futuristics net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Neuer <dneuer@futuristics.net>
To: Michael D. James <docjava@ricochet.net>
Date: Thursday, August 19, 1999 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: my shortlist of GNOME wishes


>>If this is an appropriate topic I'll throw in my own two cents.  The
>>worst thing about most GUI environments is they don't lend themselves
>>to scripting.
>>
>>Computers were supposed to help us automate things.  But on PCs I find
>>myself doing a lot of manual repetitive tasks because I'm pointing and
>>clicking instead of typing textual commands which could be put into a
>>script.
>
>I think that the GUI paradigm is somewhat antithetical to scripting; GUI's
>are all about interaction, human-to-computer interface.  Scripting is about
>automation, computer-to-computer interface.  MacOS has an Open Scripting
>Architecture, an API which allows authors of gui apps to make their apps
>scriptable.  MacOS has to do this because it doesn't have a command-line
>interface.  GNOME could conceivably provide an API like this too, but why
>should it?  Unlike the MacOS, Unix/Linux already has a command line and
>powerful scripting languages/engines.  It has lots of little programs which
>do one specific thing in a flexible, powerful way and languages to tie
these
>tools together.  That's the Unix philosophy.
>
>Several people on this list previously have previously posted requests for
a
>"connect-the-dots" kind of inter-app connectivity, akin to pipes, but
>graphically constructed.  I think that that is a worthwhile goal which
would
>help newbie users automate simple tasks with GUI apps.  However, I think
>that once a user becomes comfortable enough to actually bang out a script
in
>some kind of textual, interpreted language, they might as well just use
>existing command-line tools & scripting engines because these are already
>optimized precisely for this type of activity.
>
>Just my 3 cents.
>
>>
>>Hmmmm.
>>
>>                           Michael
>
>Dave Neuer
>