>For a real world example of FreeRx, pick up the Bourn Shell manual that
>came with Berkeley Unix in the mid 1980s. One only needs to thumb through
>three or four pages to realize each command in this UI was written totally
>without regard to the rest of the commands. The commands were presented in
>different formats and writing styles. Much worse, a modifyer for one
>command (eg: "/A") would mean one thing for one command and something else
>for another command. Commands would often use the same modifier for
>different purposes or different modifiers for the same purpose.
Rob,
I know what you mean. The advantage is that we already have many things
laid out, and that we don't meet every three months, rather we keep in
constant contact via this list, via the web site, via "snapshots" we
release of the code.
The parts being developed right now are also still very generic and don't
have to fit together this way. E.g. the XBF file format is so generic that
it could also be used for storing other things, e.g. geneology data, a
Director presentation or whatever. You could put a complete manual in it,
or ... a stack. It's still so generic that this isn't a problem. Same
applies to Anthony's new interpreter. You can use it to create any xTalk
language, independent from the object model or file format. This is why it
works now.
Finally, we have HC as a model of how it's supposed to look, and we are
all basing our code on ANSI C++, which means we'll be able to put it
together with some glue code in between. I'll put a document on the web
site describing this more closely. Of course, FreeUI might not yet be able
to boast featurism, since new features might not be available until
FreeCard 2.0, but designing a UI will work, since basically we'll be
redesigning HyperCard's UI, only with added color.
It will work. But thank you for the warning. We will need to remember it
some later time. As to the docs -- I'm usually talking about programmers'
documentation, which *must* be done by the authors. Of course, users'
documentation should be done in very close collaboration. Commenting code
is also important, but most users will never see that.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
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