Re: SEUL: Getting somewhere

[Magnus Lycka <magnus.lycka@tripnet.se>]

>While a soon release is a really good idea, I think we should keepthis as a
>0.x or even 0.0.x distribution, until we're happy with it (that's it's
>sufficently easy to use) so as not to intimidate potential users when our
>REAL SEUL 1.0 comes out...
>
>Loren

Certainly, this would be an alpha release (or pre alpha). The point would
be to give us a firmer base for discussions (not just castles in the sky),
and also real world experience with building the release, trying to install
it on different platforms, seeing what problems we run into and so on.

I also think it would be a good idea to start by brutally grabbing an
existing release. (RedHat and Debian are the two I can think of, and I
think I prefer RedHat, but to be honest I don't have the hands on experience
to say this.) Strip it to something minimal. Refine what needs to be refined,
and add what needs to be added. Analyze existing problems and come up with
solutions.

I think it would be good from a realistic point of view if we could get 
something real out, thus eliminating all arguments about not yet really
existing things that would be good. Those who want to introduce something
that isn't still a reality will have to start coding.

This desire for perfection I see from some on this list really reminds me
of Don Knuth. Hm... I should write a book 'The Art of Computer Programming'.
Hm... not good type setting tools, I have to invent that first... I think
I'll call it TeX. Hm... no good methods for developing large applications,
I'll have to invent that first. I think I'll call it litterate computing...
Decades have gone by and he is still not done with his 'Art of Computer
Programming'. (TeX was good though...)

Never mind, on forward:

Obviously, one of the strenghts of Linux is its diversity and flexibility,
but for SEUL I think we should settle for a fairly solid and strict default
setup to achieve as much consistency as we can.

One mail client. One editor. One web browser. One spreadsheet app. One
wordprocessor (?). One filemanager. One window manager.

I imagine that it should be possible to install a non GUI version of SEUL
as well, but then it's Pine, Lynx, Joe and don't blame us or expect cut
and paste between apps...

Heading on to very practical things: Is WindowMaker mature enough today?
I think NeXTish behavious is the right way to go, mainly because it's really 
good, but also because then we have the hype on our side... ;-)

Drag and drop would be nice. I think DND support could be a reasonable
requirement for 'proper' SEUL applications if that is possible. We already
have ImageMagick, Siag, Xemacs and the eXode stuff handling that. (Do I
hear Netscape as well?)

	Magnus


--
Magnus Lycka, Folktrov. 6C, 907 51 Umea, Sweden
+46(0)90 198 498, magnus.lycka@tripnet.se, www1.tripnet.se/~mly

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