[ruby-talk:11427] Re: trial balloon: Ruby desktop?

Jon Aseltine wrote:
>I have been thinking about something for some time now, and I wanted to
>get some feedback from the list. Would it be feasible/possible/wise to
>craft a desktop environment using Ruby as its backbone? I am quite
>unhappy with the state of both GNOME and KDE, and I find the idea of a
>Ruby desktop exciting. Some parts need to be fast (some window manager
>stuff, e.g.), but other things, including most application logic, could
>be in pure Ruby, I think.

Obviously several people are very interested. I 
might be, but need to understand more about what 
you are really suggesting. Also, there is a 
potential to have plans so ambitious that they 
may never bear fruit, or may take so long that 
the miss many opportunities (I'm thinking of 
projects like Mozilla and HURD).

So, can you describe in one sentence the 
absolute, minimum, bare-bones Ruby-based desktop 
that you could envision wanting to run on your 
own desktop? What would it do for you?

Then, can you add a few more sentences describing 
additional functionality that would improve the 
product?

Finally, can you give a couple sentences to 
describe how you envision the end result? 
Comparisons with MSWindows, Gnome, KDE, and other 
existing systems would be especially helpful 
here.

Thanks!

Kevin