I forgot to CC to list. Here it is.
----- Forwarded message from Zvezdan Petkovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2001 17:13:48 -0400
From: Zvezdan Petkovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: when lyx say bye bye to xforms?
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; from [EMAIL PROTECTED] on Sat, Jun 09,
2001 at 12:31:51PM -0700
Well, I really had to jump on this train...
Notice that I'm speaking in my name only as a user of LyX mostly.
On Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 12:31:51PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > I actually believe that most of our user base will be on Windows once
> > such a version (with no X-Server requirement) surfaces.
>
> There is nothing, IMHO, more tragic than lost opportunities. They
> abound in the world of open source. The point of view that delay has
> no consequences is unfathomable to me, and the arrogant idea that a
> large Windows user base awaits, whenever LyX might happen to emerge on a
> relevent toolkit (2003!), is a misguided basis for decisionmaking.
>
> There are plenty of commercial Windows products out there covering ever
> more of LyX's domain every day, let alone every month, every year.
>
I'm not quite sure who's misguided here. LyX doesn't expect to convert
Word users although if that happens great! The current and potential
user base of LyX are people who need LaTeX for their writing. Some of
these users are experienced LaTeX people, sometimes even gurus who like
the new things and are tired of referring to LaTeX User's Manual every
time they want to insert a little more complex float. Most of them are
newcomers who are forced by their teachers, advisors or scientific
journal to begin using LaTeX. And gosh, are they scared! Most of the
users in this second category is in the same time a newcomer to Unix.
And that makes them scared even more!
As a sysadmin I deal every day with people from math department who have
Linux boxes on their desks because its sexy to have one, but as soon as
they can they jump back and reboot it in Windows. Some of them are not
expert LaTeX users -- they use only a subset they've learnt long ago.
Besides, I have to answer their Unix questions every day.
There are also the new students in my Computer Science department. Some
profs require use of LaTeX in undergrad courses already. In graduate
courses and scientific journals it's absolutely standard. And to my
surprise (I must be getting old), more and more CS students see Unix for
the first time when they arrive to the graduate studies.
I also happen to know quite a few scientists (mathematicians and
physicists) who are expert LaTeX users. But they use TeX distribution for
Windows.
Now imagine having LyX on Windows. All these people would be happy and
there is quite a few of them. Add to that group potential users from non
scientific community, say writers, who want to have a nice interface for
their SGML endeavours but don't want to learn UNIX. That's quite a nice
little user base.
> You must have missed the Dilbert cartoon in which "Dogbert: Venture
> Capitalist" has lunch with an entrepreneur whose idea is "a word
> processor for Windows".
>
As I said above, no way that LyX will change an average user's opinion
about Word. We'll still be getting doc files in e-mail. LyX won't change
the world. But who knows, if a grandma has an option to try both LyX
and Word, when she sits at her new computer for the first time, she
might prefer LyX. :-)
I have a feeling that you'd like to use a LyX as a vehicle to attract
more users to Unix (e.g. Linux) + your favourite desktop (e.g. Gnome).
Frankly, I began my life with computers on VAX VMS and IBM VM, continued
on various variants of Unix (Ultrix, HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, Linux,
*BSD, AIX) and even for a while developed a software professionally for
MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 (almost a decade ago). I like using Unix and
personally use it on all my home and work machines. However, I'm not an
average user and there's hardly anything LyX can do to change the market
balance.
Regarding the competitiveness of LyX on any platform I do not quite see
what's your point. Word is a completely different product with different
user base. The same story with better things than Word. Take Frame Maker.
People who use it will hardly switch to Word or LyX. However, people who
need LaTeX might flock to LyX. Why? Because it's free. If I have the
best typesetting program in the world (TeX) for free, why would I pay
Y&Y or any other company to get their graphical front-end for it. I'd
rather stick to Emacs. But if I have LyX that's another thing.
> > After all, most peoples still use Windows and at least in my
> > university, most computers are Windows and most users prefer Windows
> > (which is a shame, but this is the current fact).
>
This is correct as I pointed above.
> Viewing LyX as a future resource for Windows rather than as a fantastic
> product for the here and now (or near future, with a modern toolkit)
> for the Unixes is likely to render LyX irrelevent, IMHO.
>
What is the modern toolkit? GTK? Qt? Why's that so important? Most of
the people can do whatever they want with Emacs + regular LaTeX markup.
But some things are easier with LyX.
I tried LyX first time (version 0.X) on a DEC workstation under Ultrix,
then SGI under IRIX, then SunOS, Solaris, Linux, and FreeBSD. No matter
what was the underlying desktop LyX worked fine and XForms didn't look
any worse than Motif or GTK for that matter.
My point is: real users really don't care do you use XForms or something
else. They want the work done -- and LyX + LaTeX does it. Most of the
users also do not care what their desktop looks like. After many (too
many) experiments I settled with a solid colour background and a small
window manager that stays out of my way (wmx). I have work to do instead
of looking how my buttons look like and what new snazzy border or
background I can use.
> Good lord, do other developers here actually agree with this point of
> view, motivated in X-server independence?
Finally, if I don't care what kind of toolkit it is, why I support the
developer's movement towards GUII. Two words. Software engineering.
Splitting of substance and presentation is The Good Thing (TM). That
will mean that product is well designed and none of its substantial
inner features depends on an outside visible presentation form.
Maintenance will be easier and the new coolest toolkits will be added
easily. And yeah, that math prof who writes his new great scientific
paper on a Linux box at work will be able to bring it home and continue
on his Windows (or why not Mac OS X ;-) machine.
Wow, this was long. Sorry.
--
Zvezdan Petkovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.cs.wm.edu/~zvezdan/
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Zvezdan Petkovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.cs.wm.edu/~zvezdan/
