You're looking at a snapshot of time in a progression. It's not just a matter of the situation being better than it is for some others--it's a matter of continual progression over time. You can't just snap your fingers and have a perfect world.
One of the central thrusts of the Protestant Reformation was a return to a spiritual church run by God himself, rather than a physical church run by an organization of men. So yes, there have been (and still are) churches that see themselves as an amalgam of people sharing in a spiritual reality, rather than a hierarchical power-driven organization. You just don't hear much about them.
I don't disagree with your main point, but the reason people are so annoyed by Microsoft's use of others' ideas is that Microsoft then proceeds to claim that the afore-mentioned ideas sprang fully formed from the gigantic brain of Bill Gates, referred to reverentially as "God Almighty." It's their arrogance and lack of respect for those who came before that really annoys me.
Speaking from Qt Designer experience. The "Form" class needs to be subclassed, because you are EXTENDING it. You ARE adding functionality. You can't make a calculator app without at least thirteen buttons and a view window. You could make a generic collection class widget, but *somewhere* something has to deal with those fifteen collected widgets. Something has to deal with the events/signals from the buttons and something has to deal with updating the view. Something has to connect the buttons to the viewport. I don't know what handles this stuff in GORM, but something MUST be handling it.
In GNUstep/Cocoa, you have a Controller that connects to your object archive and talks to the window and controls. Also, the window is connected to the controls and subviews through a Responder chain. It's a more "correct" way of doing things, from the perspective of object-oriented design and MVC because you really shouldn't be extending your Form class (or Window class, taxonomy depends on the framework <grin>) unless you're actually going to change the fundamentals of the way windows work.
I should say, however, that QT is miles ahead of Delphi, and maybe even.NET. If I were going to develop applications with this approach, QT would probably be the way to go.
But your last point is dead wrong. You don't have to subclass a class to instantiate it. That's stupid. No wonder you hate C++ if you think you have to do that.
First, I don't hate C++. It's great, particularly for mathematics and data structures. But QT Designer, Delphi, and the.NET tools I've used all subclass the Form class for each form you create. Then, you add control objects as "new" members of this class. There's really no need for this in most cases, since you rarely add new functionality. And object composition, as you suggest, would be a much better way to go. I'll never know why this has become such a common way of doing it.
Frankly speaking I do not think GNUStep is something which an everyday user can use.
You probably don't realize how right you are.:-) GNUstep isn't a desktop like GNOME and KDE are. It's a development environment, more akin to QT for KDE or GTK and assorted libraries for GNOME.
Well, several more straight-forward and subdued attempts were made to post this story (about 12 or so, by different individuals) and they were all rejected, frustrating the hell out of the developers. The only way to get it through seems to be the use of Slashdot keywords like GNOME and KDE. Slashdot has become your one-stop shop for sensationalism and outrageous claims since that's all that can get the attention of the posting team.
This is, quite simply, false. GNUstep bundles can change as much behavior and appearance as desired. It's not just "changing colors." You can completely redesign the whole behavior and appearance of widgets if you like. For instance, there's a bundle called WildMenus that ditches the NeXT vertical menu and replaces it with a horizontal Mac menu at the top. Just an example.
There's quite a bit of difference between GNUstep on the one hand and KDE/GNOME on the other. But it's not a difference for end-users so much as a difference for programmers. Building a more attractive user interface for GNUstep is not that difficult, however, since there's a theme engine in Beta. We just need usability experts and artists to help design good themes and desktop systems.
Sadly, there is a strong contingent within the community that likes the old NeXT look and doesn't want anything else to be seen. But there is a theme engine and a couple of themes that look pretty good.
Second, why is this such a big deal? Don't QT, Visual Basic, and Delphi provide the same RAD approach? No. I've used all of those tools and they just don't stack up. QT is about as good as you're going to get out of a static compile-time-oriented C++ approach. But it's not as simple or direct as a runtime-oriented OO solution like Smalltalk or Objective-C. This is the power of Cocoa/OpenStep/GNUstep.
Delphi,.NET, and QT GUI designers focus on generating code. This is cumbersome and brittle. But Apple/NeXT's Interface Builder and GNUstep's Gorm take a different approach. They actually instantiate objects, set state, create inter-object connnections, and then persist the in-memory objects to disk. When your application is loaded, these objects are unarchived and your application connects to them. This prevents the OO-mocking approach of subclassing a Window class just to create your own instance--something that always makes me laugh but is ubiquitous in the Windows world and has been blindly copied by KDE and GNOME.
Finally, the poster is not a native speaker of English and clearly was not able to convey the sense of humor intended.
Perhaps you don't understand my use of the term 'Nationalist'. I use it to refer to those who would convert our Union of States into a single monolithic Nation-State. The opponents of the Federal principle are Nationalists: they seek a Nation instead of a Union.
I think it's because they didn't focus entirely on satire of current culture. There's plenty of that in there, of course, and if you know what was going on at the time it's even funnier. But the comedic timing, facial expressions, and just plain oddity is enough to carry the humor on its own. I think they're comparable to the Marx Brothers in this regard.
Another reason is that, despite the cultural differences between the 1970s and today, there are still a lot of similarities. It's a Tree is similar enough to current talk/variety shows that it still makes me laugh. And even some of the digs at the BBC are applicable to American TV networks.
Slashdot Mirror
Idiot.
You're looking at a snapshot of time in a progression. It's not just a matter of the situation being better than it is for some others--it's a matter of continual progression over time. You can't just snap your fingers and have a perfect world.
You've certainly come to the right place.
One of the central thrusts of the Protestant Reformation was a return to a spiritual church run by God himself, rather than a physical church run by an organization of men. So yes, there have been (and still are) churches that see themselves as an amalgam of people sharing in a spiritual reality, rather than a hierarchical power-driven organization. You just don't hear much about them.
I wish to God somebody would destroy America, just so we'd have to stop hearing all the bitching about it.
We don't need no stinkin' flying squirrels. We have Rocky...AND Bullwinkle.
One could also imagine Congress without it's collective head up it's collective ass. And while at it, one could also wish for a million dollars.
I don't disagree with your main point, but the reason people are so annoyed by Microsoft's use of others' ideas is that Microsoft then proceeds to claim that the afore-mentioned ideas sprang fully formed from the gigantic brain of Bill Gates, referred to reverentially as "God Almighty." It's their arrogance and lack of respect for those who came before that really annoys me.
Well, far be it from me to tell you what to use, but I have found the OpenStep way is faster and more easily maintainable because of these decisions.
A lot of people in the GNUstep community are religious about the old NeXT look and don't like to put themed screenshots up.
In GNUstep/Cocoa, you have a Controller that connects to your object archive and talks to the window and controls. Also, the window is connected to the controls and subviews through a Responder chain. It's a more "correct" way of doing things, from the perspective of object-oriented design and MVC because you really shouldn't be extending your Form class (or Window class, taxonomy depends on the framework <grin>) unless you're actually going to change the fundamentals of the way windows work.
I should say, however, that QT is miles ahead of Delphi, and maybe even .NET. If I were going to develop applications with this approach, QT would probably be the way to go.
First, I don't hate C++. It's great, particularly for mathematics and data structures. But QT Designer, Delphi, and the .NET tools I've used all subclass the Form class for each form you create. Then, you add control objects as "new" members of this class. There's really no need for this in most cases, since you rarely add new functionality. And object composition, as you suggest, would be a much better way to go. I'll never know why this has become such a common way of doing it.
Heh, they already did
I think your meet substitute is Slashdot. :-)
You probably don't realize how right you are. :-) GNUstep isn't a desktop like GNOME and KDE are. It's a development environment, more akin to QT for KDE or GTK and assorted libraries for GNOME.
Well, several more straight-forward and subdued attempts were made to post this story (about 12 or so, by different individuals) and they were all rejected, frustrating the hell out of the developers. The only way to get it through seems to be the use of Slashdot keywords like GNOME and KDE. Slashdot has become your one-stop shop for sensationalism and outrageous claims since that's all that can get the attention of the posting team.
This is, quite simply, false. GNUstep bundles can change as much behavior and appearance as desired. It's not just "changing colors." You can completely redesign the whole behavior and appearance of widgets if you like. For instance, there's a bundle called WildMenus that ditches the NeXT vertical menu and replaces it with a horizontal Mac menu at the top. Just an example.
There's quite a bit of difference between GNUstep on the one hand and KDE/GNOME on the other. But it's not a difference for end-users so much as a difference for programmers. Building a more attractive user interface for GNUstep is not that difficult, however, since there's a theme engine in Beta. We just need usability experts and artists to help design good themes and desktop systems.
Heh, Gorm was actually first released in December of 1998 and has been constantly worked on since then.
Sadly, there is a strong contingent within the community that likes the old NeXT look and doesn't want anything else to be seen. But there is a theme engine and a couple of themes that look pretty good.
I don't know if PyObjC works with GNUstep, but there are Smalltalk, Ruby, and Java bindings for GNUstep in the core CVS.
First, the way the interface looks is irrelevant. A GNUstep theme engine is available here. There's a nice theme in progress called Nesedah (mockup and screenshot of IRC client along with OS X comparison shot)
Second, why is this such a big deal? Don't QT, Visual Basic, and Delphi provide the same RAD approach? No. I've used all of those tools and they just don't stack up. QT is about as good as you're going to get out of a static compile-time-oriented C++ approach. But it's not as simple or direct as a runtime-oriented OO solution like Smalltalk or Objective-C. This is the power of Cocoa/OpenStep/GNUstep.
Delphi, .NET, and QT GUI designers focus on generating code. This is cumbersome and brittle. But Apple/NeXT's Interface Builder and GNUstep's Gorm take a different approach. They actually instantiate objects, set state, create inter-object connnections, and then persist the in-memory objects to disk. When your application is loaded, these objects are unarchived and your application connects to them. This prevents the OO-mocking approach of subclassing a Window class just to create your own instance--something that always makes me laugh but is ubiquitous in the Windows world and has been blindly copied by KDE and GNOME.
Finally, the poster is not a native speaker of English and clearly was not able to convey the sense of humor intended.
My real goal is not to call them 'Federalists'. It was a mistake to allow them to label States' Rights promoters as "Anti-Federalist".
Perhaps you don't understand my use of the term 'Nationalist'. I use it to refer to those who would convert our Union of States into a single monolithic Nation-State. The opponents of the Federal principle are Nationalists: they seek a Nation instead of a Union.
Another reason is that, despite the cultural differences between the 1970s and today, there are still a lot of similarities. It's a Tree is similar enough to current talk/variety shows that it still makes me laugh. And even some of the digs at the BBC are applicable to American TV networks.