[ruby-talk:11444] Re: trial balloon: Ruby desktop?

Kevin Smith wrote:
> 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).

Exactly! I don't have all the answers, but as a collective we may be
able to specify things well enough.

> 
> 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?

For this, I would say an application framework and a limited set of core
applications that everyone uses (email, text editor, browser, file
manager, etc). I'm not sure where the boundaries between applications
will lie. Perhaps these applications are really just interfaces over a
coordinated set of components? New applications should be easy to
develop. And the whole thing should be intuitive for the user (I would
like to see some HCI people involved from the outset).

> 
> 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.


I dunno, I can't see that far ahead right now. But I do see something
that it easier to extend, logically designed, more intuitive to use
(with lots of consistency between applications), and far more robust.
But we probably need to make things explicit before anyone gets started.
As I said, I don't have all the answers.

Jon
-- 
_______________________________________________________________________
  Jonathan Aseltine     [e-mail]     MAS, Umass, Amherst