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>> Probably many "hobbyists" ("BlackBox adhererers" as opposed to
>> "IT-professionals") are engineers and scientists, whose
>> work is their hobby, and who write progams for themselves,
>> just to get their work done reliably and quickly ...
As one of those whose hobbies include splitting atoms and making
warplanes I might make some observations ...
1 - I agree with Wirth that when working on complex problems my
brain is tool small to also struggle with complex tools.
2 - Some voices argue that making BlackBox multi-platform (again)
would have advantages.
3 - Some voices argue that increasing the number and flexibility
of GUI controls (and indeed adding other platform specific
capabilities - eg accessibility options for the handicapped or fancy
IDE support) would have advantages.
It seems to me the combination of 2) and 3) above multiplies the
size of each task, and for a severely effort limited community doing
both is essentially impossible.
Is it the case that, as a community, there is no clear concensus which
has higher priority (2 or 3) that has prevented us forming an effective
growth project?
The heart of my work (hobby?) is complex application domain specific
algorithms. These are written in 'pure' CP; no calls to Windows specific
DLLs or whatever. I imagine they would port to other platforms
with no (ok, very little) difficulty. It is the (to me) inessential extras
that would be difficult.
I do not want to lose the current GUI/Framework capabilities. I do not
want to add to the complexity of using BBox. Sure, some extra features
always seems like a nice idea.
But when it comes to priorities my vote is:
1 - Keep BBox simple & reliable.
2 - Make it multi-platform (I want 64 bits!).
3 - (and definately my lowest priority) Add nice-to-have features.
Regards
Robert
--- BlackBox
--- send subject HELP or UNSUBSCRIBE to blackbox{([at]})nowhere.xy
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Received on Wed May 17 2006 - 13:58:56 UTC