[clean-list] Re: Communicating with other programs (Monique Wittebrood & Marco Kesseler)

[Siegfried Gonzi]

From: Monique Wittebrood & Marco Kesseler <m.wittebrood@mailbox.kun.nl> schrieb,

clean-list-admin@cs.kun.nl schrieb:

> Consider this: suppose that Clean 2.0 arrives tomorrow, together with all
> its sources. Are you going to guarantee that these sources get updated
> frequently?

How important are the I/O stuff for the users? My plan has been to implement a 2 dimensional plotting library, but
I think  it is better to cancel this project: Even under the assumption that Clean provides (at least for the Mac
and Windows platform) a ready to use GUI-suit, I think I will not find the time to implement a well planned 2d
plotting library (this is not relevant here, but: my Master has been in astrophysics but now I got a PhD position
in geophysics and have to learn a  lot more, not necessarily new, but different stuff; especially chemical
processes in the Earth atmosphere; and my time is better used when I concentrate on that). Lets be honest:
inventing the wheel is stupid.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding concerning the current Clean I/O stuff. As I see it, the Clean I/O stuff is at
first a GUI stuff and not a gluing stuff (as it is common in the Unix/Linux community).

Yes, a few weeks ago I wrote different rants, but you should know it better and never trust an Austrian fool. But
wouldn't it be a better idea to augment the possibility, on Unix/Linux, to glue together programs? The
core-kernel  for Windows, Macintosh, Unix/Linux *is actually* the same.

Or wouldn't it be the better idea to port Clean to BSD? To many user systems as possible?

I mean the argument that the I/O stuff is not available for Unix/Linux holds only -- in my opinion --at the first
moment, because the GUI stuff does not include communicating with other programs!

I am not sure how other GUI-tools are behaving in this respect. Is it e.g. with Tcl/Tk required to always program
purely in it? I mean when one is caught in the Clean I/O stuff then he always is forced to stay "purely" with it?

Why I changed my sense concerning beeing pure and superior: I listened to a talk programe on the radio and someone
there complained that we are inventing the wheel every day (especially in programming) and after a few minutes I
came to the conclusion: He was right.


Regards,
Siegfried Gonzi