GORM 1.0 Release to Take on GNOME/KDE?

qa'lth writes "Today marks the occasion of the release of Gorm 1.0, the Interface Builder for the GNUstep project, and with its release, comes the obsolesence of the GNOME and KDE projects. Finally, today, Free Software users can enjoy the power of a well-designed, powerful object-oriented system derived from OpenStep, legacy to the acclaimed MacOSX, through GNUstep, our loving reimplementation of the OpenStep standard."

Comments

Riiight.

[coolGuyZak]

with its release, comes the obsolesence of the GNOME and KDE projects

Riiight. 'Nuff Said.

Re:Riiight.

[molnarcs]

Yeah - I don't know which is worse: 1) making such claims just for publicity (flamebait?) 2) or truly believing in it. In either case, the first screenshot you bump into will discredit their claim immediately. Compare it with anything trolltech has to offer with qt4 (or kde4's plasma efforts, koffice kids, etc.) and their development tools... I don't mention GNOME development tools because I'm not familiar with them, but I don't think they will be "obsoleted" either.

Re:Riiight.

[GreyWolf3000]

I think it was meant as a joke.

However, gnustep has been themed, and it can look pretty good. From a UI perspective, I really like how consistent and polished the interface is, even when it's in the default "prosaic" grey. And it's not only easy to learn, it's also easy to use. From a usability perspective, I think it's much more intelligently designed than Gnome or KDE.

Re:Riiight.

[minus_273]

the screenshots on that page are horrible. look at these for a batter idea:
the dock

like GTK, Everything looks better once it is themed

look at this

The new icons are really nice too
gorm
help
installer

Re:Riiight.

[molnarcs]

I think it was meant as a joke.

Then the guy must have a very good sense of irony ;) It is interesting to see how (at the moment) slashdot tries to decide whether it was a joke or not :)) I wonder which reading of this story will win out :) Currently I can't decide - but yeah, at first sight, it didn't occur to me that it was a joke :)

I'm not a developer - but follow the development of various desktop closely (mainly KDE and enlightenment). I'm also a thinkerer, and I like to try out alternative desktops once in a while, including Afterstep, windowmaker, and the likes (that follow the same UI paradigm seen in gnustep) - and I noticed that there was very little or no development at all of these desktops in the past few (3-4) years. I have to admit that both wmaker and afterstep are different from other desktopts, but I won't apostrophize that difference as revolutionary. And I don't see where it would take (even with rapid development tools) the current desktop paradigms (or how it compares to future ones, like plasma). In short: I don't see the vision, the why this is soo cool aspect. You wrote: "From a usability perspective, I think it's much more intelligently designed than Gnome or KDE." - yeah, but whose usability? It is really really difficult to define an objective usability perspective. I don't dispute your claim, I just don't understand it :))

Re:Riiight.

[wangmaster]

I love it. I swear people take these things way too seriously. I get the feeling that the vast majority of people on slashdot are computer geeks with no social skills, hence the inability to get a joke.

That said, the OPENSTEP/NEXTSTEP UI has largely been considered one of the most elegant and usable interfaces to have been created. It's extremely intuitive, and while the GNUSTEP work isn't there yet, the "completion" of Gorm.app is a very good sign, as the interface builder is the foundation to creating the wonderful UI of classic NeXT applications. NeXT spent a ton of money hiring some of the best UI designers in the world, and the UI shows it. People laud over OS X's ability to hide the Unix from the newbie user, but I don't think many of them know that this had existed since the '90s beginning with NEXTSTEP.

Apple broke alot of the inherent intuitiveness of the NeXT UI when they moved to OS X, which isn't necessarly bad though, as intuitiveness != familiarity and their changes were mainly to make existing Mac OS users comfortable.

I'm impressed that the GNUStep project is still able to have milestones like this.

Re:Riiight.

[Archibald Buttle]

Yes folks.

As we all know, how pretty your user interface looks is the best barometer of how easy it is to use, how simple it is to program for, how much leverage applications get from the underlying API, and how powerful applications written using the underlying toolkit will be.

American readers should append the word "NOT" onto the end of the last paragraph.

Gorm and GNUstep are mostly about the underlying API. It's possible to rapidly build incredibly powerful applications using Gorm - significantly faster than you can with the KDE or GNOME toolkits.

Re:Riiight.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just my $0.2 here, but...

I follow the GNUstep-dev mailing lists (big fan, myself), and I can assure you the poster was making a joke. Among the GNUstep developer community I do not think there is any misconception as to how "complete" the system is. I use it, and I write apps for GNUstep using Gorm and ProjectCenter, but there is a lot of ground to cover before obsoleting the likes of GNOME.

Amusingly, there was recently a thread about trying to get the release of Gorm 1.0 announced here. Plenty of folks said that they had submitted the story numerous times, only to be rejected. There is perhaps a feeling that the editors deny the existence of anthing that isn't KDE/GNOME, Microsoft/Google/Apple, etc., and perhaps the poster just didn't have very high hopes that the story would even get through.

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

How about decent and WORKING drag and drop?

everyone is busy with eye candy and other useless add-ons and ignore basic operability and useability.

Re:who cares

[ScootyPuffJr]

I disagree here. Drag and drop can be incredibly intuitive if it's implemented in a sensible way.

I use drag and drop a lot when using Mac OS X simply because it works so well. Dragging files to the trash, dragging files to applications to open them, dragging images off web pages to save them etc.. it just comes naturally after a while (whereas digging through menus to find features like that has to be learnt every time). And with Exposé, you never need to rearrange windows.

Just because Windows (and therefore Linux, as sadly the linux desktops have heavily copied windows as opposed to OS X) can't do drag and drop effectively doesn't mean it's inviable. It just means that it's been made inviable through poor design.

Graphical Object Relationship Modeller

[stivi]

Gorm is also a RAD application that allows one to create user interfaces and various application object models in very intuitive way, benefiting from highly dynamic features of the Objective-C language and runtime. Flash videos can be seen here. More information can be found on this blog. Interesting is, that the application could never be done in C++, check out why.

Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller

[hunterx11]

Saying that it couldn't be done in C++ sounds like flamebait. A much better (and true) claim would be that Objective-C is the right tool for the job, and C++ absolutely the wrong tool for the job in this instance.

GuuuuuuuuhhhHHH!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I GOOOOOOOORRRRMMM!!!!!! GORM SMASH!!!!! KDE EAT!!!! SMASH GNOME!!!! GUUUUUhhhHHH!!!! GrrrRRRRR!!!! I GOOOOOOOORRRRRMMMMM!!!!




alternatively:

Gorm nuts!
Corn nuts!!
Gorm nuts!
Coooorn nuts!!
Gooorm nuts!!!
Cooooooooorn!!!!!!
Gooooooooooorrm!!!!!

Knock em dead GORM!

[gihan_ripper]

Maybe GORM will make GNOME and KDE obsolete, but first their server will have to withstand a righteous Slashdotting!

-1 Flamebait

[ticklejw]

So why can't we moderate articles too?

Maybe... No.

[Ageless]

I'll be the first to admit that Interface Builder (in OS X at least) is an incredible, life changing piece of software. If you've never written a GUI using Cocoa with Interface Builder you can't even imagine how easy it can be.

And Gorm is supposed to be Interface Builder for GNUStep.

That said, it's not GNOME or KDE. You've still got to write that whole boring desktop thing. Gorm might make it a lot easier to write all the stuff that's still missing but saying it made GNOME and KDE obsolete is just plain bullshit.

Lighten up

[Ur@eus]

They GNUStep guy announcing this was just trying to have some fun, why the hell to people get some riled up by the obsoleting GNOME and KDE statement, have people completely lost their sense of humour? Congratulations to the GNUStep team on their Gorm 1.0 release! nuff said

open step vs cocoa

[minus_273]

I think three things will really help GNUstep. the first it the ability to read nib files. If GORM can load a OSX nib file, it will allows people to port the thousands of OSX apps they have made to GNUstep. Second, if they chnaged their target to Cocoa (link it to a version of OSX and release new versions with each release to add features).
The third and final thing is the appearance. GNUstep will never be popular looking thw way it does now. The default look looks too much like 1994 and unfortunately, many people will judge it based on that.

OSX + linux cross platform development would be a HUGE boost to linux.

GNUstep is another choice, not a replacement.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hhhmmmmm.

Me thinks that this poster is a bit sarcastic.

But whatever. GNUstep is a mature and well thought out system for power users. Not my cup of tea, but in absence of Gnome 2.4 and newer software I would probably be using it.

It's also great for systems with lower resources. X terminals, Pentium 2 machines, and the like. Very nice and is picking up the slack that KDE and Gnome leave as they race to beat Microsoft Vista (hopefully before Vista reaches critical mass 2-3 years after it finally gets released (MS still saying it's end of next year?))

If your like me and KDE makes you twitch nerviously, or unlike my you don't have a gig of RAM to deal with Gnome's concept of "simplicity thru complexity" then definately give GNUstep-based systems a look. (GNUstep is actually the API stuff, other projects do the desktop bits)

The nice thing about GNUstep that may attract people is that it's a implimentation for OpenSTEP.

Software previously developed for the Openstep API is what Apple used to create the 'modern' Cocoa half of OS X. (were as the 'older' half is Carbon which follows along the lines of OS 9 and OS 8).

Effectively this makes Cocoa a extended version of Openstep. GNUstep and Cocoa then share a high degree of API compatability. That means that if you write for Cocoa you can much more easily port your applications to run in Linux on Gnustep API and visa versa.

Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!!

[grahamlee]

Both OS X's Cocoa and GNUstep are based on the same API specification; "OpenStep" jointly written by NeXT Software and Sun Microsystems in the mid-1990s. Code which targets OpenStep will work on both Cocoa and GNUstep - however from thereon there are divergences...GNUstep has classes which Cocoa lacks and vice versa. It would be possible to reimplement the missing classes on the other system, just it hasn't been done.

Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!!

[SavvyPlayer]

GORM also obsoletes XTerm, Vista, Web 2.0, the Automobile and the Universe in general.

Gorm Videos Demonstrations

[roard]

I recorded a few videos (flash..) demonstrating Gorm ...

It's a bit tedious to explain with words what Gorm is all about -- it's much simpler to actually *see* it :-)

If you have only one video to see, check the one about the custom palette -- but the other are interesting too :-) (the StepTalk one demonstrate a creation of a simple calculator *entirely* in Gorm, using the StepTalk palette, which let you code in various languages).

Re:Gorm Videos Demonstrations

[roard]

Whew! After all that mousewaving I finally got through it.

Did you notice that there's actually sound (as in me, talking and making sense of all the mousewaving) in those videos ? :-)

what I'm seeing here is Visual Basic, with object orientation. Not to knock it because of this.

Frankly, no, it's vastly different. Or, in a way, yes, it's "VB with object orientation"... but:

• Properly done
• With easy integration of custom objects, custom views, custom widgets
• Not tied to graphical objects (you can also manage and connect non-graphical objects)
• Less code to type
• Emphasis on a good design (MVC)
• Cross platform
• Target/Action paradigm
• Wonderful programming framework (use of delegates, etc)

So yes, it's "VB with OO" if you want to see it that way :-D but it's FAR from following the "VB paradigm".

In other news ...

[lheal]

The VIM development team just announced that emacs is obsolete.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek...

[borgheron]

All,

For all of those of you who can't take a joke, tongue was firmly planted in cheek regarding the "KDE/GNOME obsolesence" bit of the post. While I didn't write the post, I know who did and that part, at least, was meant as a joke. Also look on it as something of a commentary on slashdot itself: sometimes it's impossible to get anything on here unless it's sensationalistic or overly stated.

I, personally, tried posting 6 times before giving up. Imagine my suprise at seeing this when I woke up this morning!

Later, GJC

Features of Gorm vs. Glade

[borgheron]

Compare Glade to Gorm feature-wise. Aside from the appearance of GNUStep, which admittedly stands to be improved, you will find that some of the features Gorm has, Glade blatantly lacks. One thing in particular is the ability to use custom palettes. Glade comes with a standard set of widgets, period... also Glade does not allow the modelling of non-gui objects, Gorm does.

So from that standpoint alone Gorm is compares favorably. I think you better step back from that "BMW" for a while and ask yourself what you're really getting.

GJC