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Croquet SDK 1.0 Beta Released
mzimmerm writes "As reported on Squeak-dev mailing list, the beta release of Croquet, which enables to 'create powerful and highly collaborative multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations' is out. From the home page: 'It is the first complete release of the Croquet technology and marks a significant event for those interested in developing powerful collaborative applications.'"
I have had a look at Croquet and have considered downloading and compiling it a few times but I was put off by the amount of code I had to download. Now that they are making a release I might reconsider.
I wonder how many people are actually using it? It would be a shame to be the only one.
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But can it synergize end-to-end clicks-to-bricks solutions with transparent ROI? A bunch of VC's are waiting.
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
Oh the idea of replacing the 2D desktop single user desktop sounds reasonable enough but the problem always remains the same.
Ease of control.
An other way of doing it is to recreate everyday objects so people will feel at home. I personally have had some light experience with an early B2B app wich had as it interface a desk. Yes, a business app where your phone list was a in a grapical binder looking just like the real thing. It had it all, a phone for dialing in. Drawers for storage.
Very nice but now we consider it obsolete. Why? Well partly because we learned to deal with the abstract desktop mostly because it just to cumbersome. Once you have "learned" that the filofax is where you adresses are stored it afterwards becomes just a bother to go through the animation. In a way the learning curve for a more abstract representation is offset by the quicker use. Also a tiny icon or perhaps even a menu entry doesn't wast half your deskspace.
So that is the reason the desk like desktop died.
So we are left with the abstract desktop but now trying to add stuff to it. It doesn't work.
As said control is a bitch. All our input devices are made for a two dimensional world. Even if you can adopt a mouse to control 3 axis (say reuse the scroll wheeel) that comes at the cost of yes, you guessed it loosing the scroll wheel for scrolling.
Even then it is barely possible to control a center point with your mouse. Or the "camera". To then change both your camera AND manipulate objects in view of the camera becomes a nightmare.
The proof? Well try the demo. Control is crap. It is not that hard to figure out. Why do you think CAD programs give you three views of the 3D world you are trying to manipulate? Because it is easier to move something in a 2D plane then in a 3D world.
It all sounds very nice but I seen 3D desktops before and they keep suffering from the same thing. Control.
I wish the next people to undertake such a project would just concentrate first on getting the controls right. Everything else can wait because the moment you release your demo people will be put off by not being able to do anything.
3D desktop adoption == non-qwerty keyboard adoption. IF users don't see a very high payoff of increased usability vs learning costs they just won't do it.
Make sure your demo A does something very usefull B instructs very clearly how to use it (why is there no movement tutorial in this?) and C keep the learning curve shallow.
Take a hint from 3D games. They have had to deal with the same problems for years. TUTORIAL!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I read this as marketing shorthand for "create open-source MMORPG's". Time will tell.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
I think you're on to something saying they should take a hint from game designers. I want a desktop i can control with AWSD and my mouse. Please excuse me while i patent this, then sit on it until its developed, and sue the pants off the developing company.
Sure, this is full 3-D, but Bob would have been full 3-D too . . . Come to think of it, isn't the engine in Vista really a way of weening the public toward this sort of interface?
The 2-D interface has inherent, long-term value.
To be blunt, the next revolution in interface isn't going to be visual. We like flat, simple layouts.
Some things are just too high concept, and the pervasive interest in 3-D desktop interfaces is one of those things.
When people sort out their papers, they don't put them on stands all around the room so they can interpret them in a radical 3-D interface. They lay them out on a table.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I know RMS is telling us not to use Java, but Java is probably the most capable in terms of 2D and 3D graphics of any cross-platform thing out there. While people gripe about Java Swing LAF, at least it displays some kind of window among peer windows on your OS and makes a brave attempt at giving OK fonts and integrating with the rest of the desktop instead of giving you a restricted sandbox to work in.
I have seen a few hair brained "collaborative" development software, and this takes the cake.
Collaboration seems to be the current buzzword of late, the fact that suddenly individual programmers can get together in a virtual environment, and work together as if in the same office. The idea you can't "collaborate" unless you have some software interface connecting them is a crock of sh*t.
This is the kind of BS waste of time that managers love and programmers hate. The fact that they have to align themselves with some middle man software that interferes with their productivity for the supposed concept of collaboration which managers see as greatly reducing development costs and improve overall application design. In the end, it becomes a hurdle developers have to get over to get to their real jobs.
Croquet is just an elaborate IM with a 3D interface. Its a gimmick, purely designed to trying and get interest and investment dollars into a company that truly has a bullsh*t product, i.e., the kind of idea that non-developers like Wall Street brokers love and will dump millions into some stupid overinflated IPOs and not once think about whether the industry truly needs this software.
The Internet bubble is back, with lots of cockamamie ideas all in an effort to give start ups their 15 minutes of fame and millions in ill-gotten funds. 2 years from now Croquet will not exist or will never have reached the potential claimed.
Look away, nothing to see here.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The problem is that the Smalltalk language in its initial incarnation (Smalltalk-80) was closely integrated with a graphical user interface, and it predates the Macintosh. It's closer to the Xerox Star interface.
While Squeak has made some moves towards a more conventional interface, it still doesn't support native widgets for any platform. It's a shame, really--a Cocoa Smalltalk would be awesome.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The out-of-the-box Squeak environment is just horrible. You can get freetype and enhanced look-n-feel packages to make it look "ok". The problem is with the whole "this is for kids education" attitude that Alan Kay and some other Smalltalkers bring to Squeak.
Another problem I see is that the UI is sluggish even on fast machines (if you don't do wire-frame window move mode). That's because the Squeak developers want it highly portable and only want to rely on the ability of the host OS to display a bitmap. With the coming (and already here to a certain extent) GPU accelerated desktops, it's going to make the Squeak UI look even more antiquated. It's windows-only, but Dolphin Smalltalk is an example of a slick Smalltalk environment.
Since Croquet is opengl-accelerated, I wish they would just fork the Squeak UI and make it look somewhat reasonable. I think one of the core Croquet developers is actually working on a new UI paradigm called Tweak.
I've just played with it and it looks quite interesting but I'll be surprised if it ever gets anywhere. It suffers from the same issues that systems based on Lisp and smalltalk always have, a seeming gratutitous delight in doing things in different ways to what people expect or are already used to.
Never mind the programming language itself, it extends to the most basic things. In less than a minute I was near to screaming in frustration at how difficult it was to move an avatar around. You can't use W,A,S,D or expect the arrow keys to work. You have to handle complicated mouse gestures and interpret miniscule icons, where the tooltips pop up behind the frame so you can't read them.
I like the concept alot, we need open source virtual spaces. Most of the current ones like MMORPGS have corporate owners. You exist in WoW or Second Life only as long as you pay and on the sufferance of the lords of the realm.
So I suggest that the people working on Croquet drop the elitist mindset, get a bunch of people who play Quake or SL and sit them in front of this. Then take notice of their feedback and make it so anyone can pick it up at least using and navigating it in a few minutes.
Ame