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User: tensordyne

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  1. Whatever happened to the Unix Interface? on The Waning of the Overlapping Window Paradigm? · · Score: 1
    The problem with present day GUI's is that they follow WIMP based design. This is getting old and people are looking for alternatives but are not sure what they are looking for.

    I propose that I have found what they want. It came to me when I considered the Unix shell as it compared to a WIMP based equivalent. The problem is you can't ad hoc combine programs together using a WIMP as you can in a shell.

    First off, in Unix, "Everything is a file."

    Why not make window's into something like a file. That way it can be moved around and combined into other window's. You would mount a client to one and only one program and it would recieve errors,
    requests, replies and events for any number of windows bellow it. Much more general.

    Secondly, in Unix, you create little programs that can be chained together using system resources (such as pipes, etc.). These little programs do one thing and one thing only, but they do it very well. You then chain these programs together to perform whatever you want.

    That is why you need a Windowing Kernel.

    The interface between the networking of the clients and the devices it controls (mouse,
    keyboard, etc.) would be in the hands of the windowing kernel. The window manager would control
    the screen and root windows as well as any subwindows it owns through the windowing kernel.

    I am designing this type of Windowing Kernel now but I am having a hell of a time trying to figure it all out, but it will be worth it in the end. No more bloated window programs. No more being locked in by the WIMP paradigm, long live Unix...


    -- NPC

  2. Sun, AOL et. all on Hailstorm: Open Web Services Controlled by Microsoft · · Score: 1

    The funny part of HailStorm is now I don't see other companies just sitting around not providing competition. At the very least Sun and AOL cronies in the higher regions allready have something in the works as a response.

    I personally can't wait to see how they will bend over backwards to get at each others share of the pie.

  3. Photon Quantum Computer Possible on New Molecule With Switchable Chirality · · Score: 1

    The absolute COOLEST prospect of a chirality changing molecule is the polorization changing properties. If you have an electron that has 1/2 probability of being added to this molecule and use light as a transmission medium for possible further switching of the molecule down the road you could have something...

  4. RFC 1925 rule (12) on The Second Generation Internet · · Score: 1
    There is a war going on. It is over the status of whether the world will be using CORBA or COM. As many of you probably allready know this is a fight over the world of object oriented networking in the eyes of Microsoft, or the vision as espoused by the OMG.

    I submit that both world views are equally skewed. The simple reason is that they do not follow RFC 1925 rule(12). This is a humorous RFC but it makes one VERY important point. What so ever protocol or standard you make it is not finished because there is nothing left to add, it will be finished once there is nothing left to take away.

    The dichotomy of the GUI world is that of the original Xerox windows standard set 20 years ago, and the html browser's that have really only been around for the past 11 years max. Why has not a single really new GUI concept come about in the last 10 years, because their is a need for a fundamental paradigm shift in both computing and in the interfaces we use.

    Most people that actually know something about computers I have found will use a GUI environment to play their games but when it comes to bussiness they go straight to their favorite shell, why should a shell be the ultimate technology for system admins? This is disheartening that the true hacker ethic has never been applied to GUI's. All of the most favorite distros right now are just trying to copy the Windoze interface, this is sad... but I think there is hope, we need to create a fundamentally new type of graphical interface and while we do it remember rule 12.

    -- NPC