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Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?

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  Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? wrong.address.1@gmail.com - 2016-02-27 03:18 -0800
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-27 22:36 +1100
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 04:02 -0800
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 23:07 +1100
      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-28 17:34 +1100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 23:39 -0800
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 19:49 +1100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 19:44 +1100
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 02:25 -0800
            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 21:34 +1100
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-02-29 00:08 +1100
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 05:13 -0800
                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-02-29 00:24 +1100
                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 05:49 -0800
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Warrick <kwpolska@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 15:00 +0100
                        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 06:11 -0800
                          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Warrick <kwpolska@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 15:26 +0100
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 08:50 -0800
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-29 11:39 +1100
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 11:54 +1100
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-02-29 12:05 +1100
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 12:13 +1100
                              Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 17:39 -0800
                                Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 12:49 +1100
                                  Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 17:55 -0800
                                    Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 13:02 +1100
                                      Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 18:08 -0800
                                        Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-02-29 13:35 +1100
                                          Re: Lineendings (was Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?) Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 20:48 -0800
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-02-28 17:09 +0000
                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-02-28 11:56 -0500
                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-03-02 20:44 +1100
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-28 23:50 +1100
            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 04:53 +1100
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-29 13:22 +1100
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-02-29 17:40 +1300
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? "Sven R. Kunze" <srkunze@mail.de> - 2016-02-28 13:23 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-28 12:38 +0000
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 04:54 -0800
            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-28 13:07 +0000
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 05:20 -0800
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-28 15:51 +0200
                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 06:03 -0800
                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-28 14:29 +0000
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-29 11:49 +1100
                        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-29 11:56 +0000
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2016-02-28 19:49 -0500
                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-28 17:08 +0200
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 08:41 -0800
                        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-28 23:38 +0200
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-02-29 15:47 +1100
                        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-29 08:18 +0200
                          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 23:20 -0800
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 19:20 +1100
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-29 10:37 +0200
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2016-02-29 15:43 +0000
                                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-01 03:17 +1100
                                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2016-02-29 18:17 +0000
                                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-01 05:31 +1100
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-29 10:25 +0200
                              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-29 19:33 +1100
                                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-29 10:46 +0200
                                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-02 03:44 +1100
                                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 05:07 +1100
                                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-02 13:22 +1100
                                      Speaking of Javascript [was Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?] Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-03 04:05 +1100
                                        Re: Speaking of Javascript [was Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-03 04:46 +1100
                                          Re: Speaking of Javascript [was Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?] Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.co.uk> - 2016-03-02 18:29 +0000
                                            Re: Speaking of Javascript [was Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?] Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-03 07:55 +1100
                                              Re: Speaking of Javascript [was Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE?] Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.co.uk> - 2016-03-02 22:01 +0000
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2016-02-29 21:33 -0500
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-01 15:31 +1100
                          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-03-02 20:44 +1100
                            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-02 13:57 +0200
                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-02-29 11:14 +1100
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-02-28 12:08 -0500
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-02 03:35 +1100
            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-01 20:06 +0200
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2016-03-01 11:30 -0800
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2016-03-01 11:39 -0800
              Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-03-02 12:51 +1100
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 13:15 +1100
                Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-02 07:41 +0200
                  Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-03-02 16:58 +1100
                    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-02 10:20 +0200
                      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> - 2016-03-02 23:00 +0100
                        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-03-03 00:36 +0200
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-28 13:38 +0100
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? cl@isbd.net - 2016-02-28 12:52 +0000
            Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-28 14:19 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2016-02-28 12:03 -0500
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-28 18:41 +0100
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-02-27 13:35 +0000
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? MWS <miragewebstudio12@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 20:05 +0530
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-27 15:20 +0100
      Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? wrong.address.1@gmail.com - 2016-02-27 10:13 -0800
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 05:29 +1100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-02-27 20:35 +0200
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-27 19:51 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-28 00:20 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid> - 2016-02-28 16:49 +1100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Sibylle Koczian <nulla.epistola@web.de> - 2016-02-28 11:46 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Virgil Stokes <vs@it.uu.se> - 2016-02-28 12:26 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Sibylle Koczian <nulla.epistola@web.de> - 2016-02-28 11:46 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? mm0fmf <none@invalid.com> - 2016-02-28 18:47 +0000
          Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Dietmar Schwertberger <maillist@schwertberger.de> - 2016-02-28 20:09 +0100
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2016-02-28 18:24 -0700
        Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Mike S <mscir@yahoo.com> - 2016-03-02 23:27 -0800
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Marco Kaulea <marco.kaulea@gmail.com> - 2016-02-27 18:57 +0100
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Anthony Papillion <anthony@cajuntechie.org> - 2016-02-27 13:45 -0600
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2016-02-27 20:52 +0000
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2016-02-27 21:35 +0000
    Re: Everything good about Python except GUI IDE? Mike <termim@gmail.com> - 2016-03-01 19:46 -0800

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#103637

On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 6:37:49 PM UTC+5:30, BartC wrote:
> On 28/02/2016 12:54, Rustom Mody wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 6:08:44 PM UTC+5:30, BartC wrote:
> 
> >> You have to give someone some shopping to do. What's quicker, jotting
> >> down a list of milk, bread, eggs and so on, or invoking some GUI program
> >> where you have to first look for each category, then have to choose the
> >> exact subcategory, size, quantity...
> >
> > Dunno what that has to do with GUI
> > It seems to be to do with 'coding-up'
> 
> 
> It's comparing a drag-and-drop approach with just writing a list or 
> script using text. And in a situation where there can be thousands of 
> possibilities.
> 
> To extend it further, imagine having to write a document using a mouse 
> rather than a keyboard. And doing so by having to bring up the right 
> word each time and drag it into place. It would take forever.
> 
> Going back to GUI for creating dialogs, it just doesn't work for me 
> (admittedly I've never tried it except for some tinkering decades ago). 
> The first dialog I create will be bound to have a conditional layout 
> which depends on parameters now known until runtime. Or when one element 
> has a dependency on another.

Your argument assumes
GUI = not Text Interface

whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly recursively)

eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp
GUI inside TI -- think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures
Which can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text

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#103640

Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>:

> whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly recursively)
>
> eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp
> GUI inside TI -- think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures
> Which can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text

Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.

An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google, Youtube,
trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter paper and some
colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and the end result
looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the teacher by email.

A 2nd anecdote. I occasionally need to make technical presentations to
an audience. Do I use PowerPoint or Impress? No, I use emacs, M-x
picture-mode and raw HTML (without styles). I get to concentrate on
producing effective communication, and nobody has complained about the
lack of imagery or funny animation.


Marko

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#103643

On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 7:22:08 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Rustom Mody :
> 
> > whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly recursively)
> >
> > eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp
> > GUI inside TI -- think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures
> > Which can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text
> 
> Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.
> 
> An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
> right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google, Youtube,
> trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter paper and some
> colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and the end result
> looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the teacher by email.

Point being??
If I tried to speak Finnish I'd look a fool.
Makes me a fool?

Best I can see you dont know excel [Nor do I]
Lets guess that you've spent 10 hours struggling with excel
Now compare with how much with programming and 'classical' CS
Would a couple of thousand hours be an overestimate?
Is the inherent difficulty of excel to programming consistent with that ratio?

> 
> A 2nd anecdote. I occasionally need to make technical presentations to
> an audience. Do I use PowerPoint or Impress? No, I use emacs, M-x
> picture-mode and raw HTML (without styles). I get to concentrate on
> producing effective communication, and nobody has complained about the
> lack of imagery or funny animation.

Yeah so do I
emacs → org mode → export html

Works but not ideal

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#103646

On 28/02/2016 14:03, Rustom Mody wrote:
> On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 7:22:08 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Rustom Mody :
>>
>>> whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly recursively)
>>>
>>> eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp
>>> GUI inside TI -- think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures
>>> Which can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text
>>
>> Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.
>>
>> An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
>> right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google, Youtube,
>> trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter paper and some
>> colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and the end result
>> looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the teacher by email.
>
> Point being??
> If I tried to speak Finnish I'd look a fool.
> Makes me a fool?
>
> Best I can see you dont know excel [Nor do I]
> Lets guess that you've spent 10 hours struggling with excel
> Now compare with how much with programming and 'classical' CS
> Would a couple of thousand hours be an overestimate?
> Is the inherent difficulty of excel to programming consistent with that ratio?

Some programs are just difficult to use. Yes maybe you can achieve 
something with enough knowledge and training, but then you're getting 
the result despite the obstacles put in your way rather than because the 
software is so helpful.

20 years ago, when these things were simpler, MS Word had a mind of its 
own even then. I had to produce a manual of few hundred pages, with 
diagrams and images, and it just wasn't going to happen. Not without 
spending a year on it. And employing someone to do it cost thousands.

In the end I spent a week or two throwing together some simple mark-up 
language, written in my own editor, which was then processed by my own 
script language and ending up (via my own graphics software along the 
way) as Postscript. The results were perfect.

(Have you ever had a situation where you have to edit a bit of text 
where a word is in italic or has some particular style. You delete the 
word, and try and add some more text, but it persists in using the style 
of the deleted text rather than the current style. You move further 
away; still the same. You end up deleting everything including every 
trace of that word and its style. Yet start typing on a now blank 
document, and it's still the wrong style!

That's what I mean by these applications having minds of their own. And 
with a 300-page document you can't just start all over, you need 
something reliable, and not so smart.)

-- 
Bartc

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#103666

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 01:29 am, BartC wrote:

> 20 years ago, when these things were simpler, MS Word had a mind of its
> own even then. I had to produce a manual of few hundred pages, with
> diagrams and images, and it just wasn't going to happen. Not without
> spending a year on it. And employing someone to do it cost thousands.

So you're saying that somebody else knew how to do it, but you didn't, so it
would take you a year?

I find it hard to believe that Word 20 years ago couldn't deal with
something as small as a couple of hundred pages with diagrams. I find it
much easier to believe that you're the sort of guy who would rather spend
three days inventing your solution from scratch (involving your own custom
programming language no less) than three hours reading the manual of the
existing solution.


> In the end I spent a week or two throwing together some simple mark-up 
> language, written in my own editor, which was then processed by my own 
> script language and ending up (via my own graphics software along the 
> way) as Postscript. The results were perfect.

/s/three days/two weeks/


> (Have you ever had a situation where you have to edit a bit of text 
> where a word is in italic or has some particular style. You delete the 
> word, and try and add some more text, but it persists in using the style 
> of the deleted text rather than the current style. You move further 
> away; still the same. You end up deleting everything including every 
> trace of that word and its style. Yet start typing on a now blank 
> document, and it's still the wrong style!

You know that Word lets you reset the style to plain (Roman) text? There's
no need to delete the entire line, let alone the entire document. Text
styles are toggled: just hit Ctrl-I (or is it Ctrl-Shift-I, it's been a
while since I've used Word) to toggle italic on and off. Even if the
current paragraph defaults to italic, you can still toggle it off that way.




-- 
Steven

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#103700

On 29/02/2016 00:49, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 01:29 am, BartC wrote:
>
>> 20 years ago, when these things were simpler, MS Word had a mind of its
>> own even then. I had to produce a manual of few hundred pages, with
>> diagrams and images, and it just wasn't going to happen. Not without
>> spending a year on it. And employing someone to do it cost thousands.
>
> So you're saying that somebody else knew how to do it, but you didn't, so it
> would take you a year?

An outsider would be using their own methods, perhaps some more apt DTP 
solution; I wouldn't know.

> I find it hard to believe that Word 20 years ago couldn't deal with
> something as small as a couple of hundred pages with diagrams.

Possibly, but just because it could, maybe it does so in a complicated 
manner. Or maybe it's wasn't flexible. Or maybe some things I needed 
just weren't possible.

(How did it do contents, appendices, indices, references to labelled 
items in the rest of the text? One manual I did was for the very script 
language I was using: how could Word render code, and do so with 
automatic highlighting (eg boldening) of keywords for a language it knew 
nothing about?)

And my experience is that a lot of these things were incredibly fiddly 
anyway. I'm really the sort of guy who needs to have separate plain-text 
and rendered verions of a document.

> I find it
> much easier to believe that you're the sort of guy who would rather spend
> three days inventing your solution from scratch (involving your own custom
> programming language no less) than three hours reading the manual of the
> existing solution.

The language wasn't created just for this purpose. It was part of the 
application the manual was about. And in fact it had its own manual 
later on. The graphics application was also the one used to preview the 
rendered pages before sending them off to a Postscript printer.

(And actually some of the diagrams were in a 3D vector format belonging 
to the application, a projection of which could sent as vector graphics 
to PS; I would have needed to rasterise them for Word.

So in some ways, my solution was more sophisticated than using Word.)

>> In the end I spent a week or two throwing together some simple mark-up
>> language, written in my own editor, which was then processed by my own
>> script language and ending up (via my own graphics software along the
>> way) as Postscript. The results were perfect.
>
> /s/three days/two weeks/

Actually I can't remember how long it took. I know I spent some time 
building font-data tables for the fonts which only existed inside the 
Postscript printer.

>> (Have you ever had a situation where you have to edit a bit of text
>> where a word is in italic or has some particular style. You delete the
>> word, and try and add some more text, but it persists in using the style
>> of the deleted text rather than the current style.

> You know that Word lets you reset the style to plain (Roman) text? There's
> no need to delete the entire line, let alone the entire document. Text
> styles are toggled: just hit Ctrl-I (or is it Ctrl-Shift-I, it's been a
> while since I've used Word) to toggle italic on and off. Even if the
> current paragraph defaults to italic, you can still toggle it off that way.

Yes but you have to keep doing it. It's not just Word; even Thunderbird 
(which I'm using right now) sometimes gets in a twist about quoted text 
(shown in blue) and new text shown in black. It wouldn't matter but 
quoted text doesn't wrap at the ends of lines.

It also keeps screwing up any copy and paste that happens to have 
indents. Here's one example:

One
     Two
     Three

And if I do a simple copy and paste:

One
Two
Three

And it's not always as simple as just stripping leading spaces; 
sometimes they are just munged. And I haven't even posted yet which 
often gives yet more unexpected results.

Now someone is going to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I need to set X in 
Y to Z; obviously! The point is that it should Just Work. Multiply these 
little things by dozens of examples and you will see how using Other 
People's Software can often be a complete pain.



-- 
Bartc

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#103667

On 2/28/2016 9:29 AM, BartC wrote:

> (Have you ever had a situation where you have to edit a bit of text
> where a word is in italic or has some particular style. You delete the
> word, and try and add some more text, but it persists in using the style
> of the deleted text rather than the current style. You move further
> away; still the same. You end up deleting everything including every
> trace of that word and its style. Yet start typing on a now blank
> document, and it's still the wrong style!

Wordperfect had a Reveal Codes option that made it easy to exactly fix 
such mixups.  I think it a tragedy that MS Word wiped it out.

> That's what I mean by these applications having minds of their own. And
> with a 300-page document you can't just start all over, you need
> something reliable, and not so smart.)

I did a 200 page book with WP.


-- 
Terry Jan Reedy

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#103647

Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>:

> On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 7:22:08 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Rustom Mody :
>> 
>> > whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly
>> > recursively)
>> >
>> > eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp GUI inside TI --
>> > think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures Which
>> > can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text
>> 
>> Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.
>> 
>> An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
>> right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google,
>> Youtube, trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter
>> paper and some colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and
>> the end result looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the
>> teacher by email.
>
> Point being??

I'm awaiting for an opposite anecdote, a GUI app you absolutely love and
recommend as a model for GUI developers.

We are talking about GUI tools to produce what? Crap?


Marko

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#103648

On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 8:38:49 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Rustom Mody :
> 
> > On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 7:22:08 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> >> Rustom Mody :
> >> 
> >> > whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly
> >> > recursively)
> >> >
> >> > eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp GUI inside TI --
> >> > think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures Which
> >> > can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text
> >> 
> >> Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.
> >> 
> >> An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
> >> right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google,
> >> Youtube, trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter
> >> paper and some colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and
> >> the end result looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the
> >> teacher by email.
> >
> > Point being??
> 
> I'm awaiting for an opposite anecdote, a GUI app you absolutely love and
> recommend as a model for GUI developers.

GUI app I absolutely love... um hard
But what does it prove?
Best I can see it proves I am an old (Unix) geezer brought up on text files :-)

Still as an approximation...
I edit audio with audacity
And type music with musescore

Both could be better (And Ive heard people swear by ardour... No experience myself)

The alternative -- stay with lilypond workflow -- is too primitive
In particular if musescore could input and output to lilypond or some such
it would have been optimal

...for me; ie clickety clicking 100s of notes is painful compared to typing 
them in say emacs

For a much more professional pianist friend: 
He connects a small 2 octave keyboard to his mac
Plays out what he needs to enter
And then cleans it up... in Sibelius
> 
> We are talking about GUI tools to produce what? Crap?

You (seem to) be saying that excel is crap.
Do you know it well enough to make that judgement?
Do you have equivalent functionality in some other tool?

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#103663

Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>:

> On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 8:38:49 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> We are talking about GUI tools to produce what? Crap?
>
> You (seem to) be saying that excel is crap.
> Do you know it well enough to make that judgement?
> Do you have equivalent functionality in some other tool?

Well, now you mention it, I have a third anecdote. For years I was the
treasurer of a soccer team. My predecessors had used Excel for the
purpose, with varying success. The accounting software I chose for the
job was -- Python.

I entered the transactions in Python and had the main program output all
the needed reports: Excel, HTML, email. I believe it would have been a
nightmare to do it any other way.

As for Excel being crap, I have seen admirable, heroic, colossal efforts
put in a lot of GUI apps (web or otherwise) but the results still coming
short: Excel, Atlassian, Eclipse. Thing is, I wonder if the whole GUI
paradigm is only suitable for very simple, naive things.

An exception to that comment would be games. They really are often
awe-inspiring achievements.


Marko

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#103681

Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> wrote:

>Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>:
>
>> On Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 7:22:08 PM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>> Rustom Mody :
>>> 
>>> > whereas in fact every significant GUI embeds text (possibly
>>> > recursively)
>>> >
>>> > eg TI inside GUI -- think of text inside gimp GUI inside TI --
>>> > think of Word embedding other doc types including pictures Which
>>> > can be recursive -- WOrd embeds a picture embeds text
>>> 
>>> Sigh, still nobody has mentioned an exemplary GUI application.
>>> 
>>> An anecdote: Some weeks back my son and I were struggling to get the
>>> right kind of graph out of Excel. After four hours of Google,
>>> Youtube, trial and error, we gave up, took out a pad of millimeter
>>> paper and some colored pencils. The whole job took my son an hour and
>>> the end result looked great. He snapped a picture and sent it to the
>>> teacher by email.
>>
>> Point being??
>
>I'm awaiting for an opposite anecdote, a GUI app you absolutely love and
>recommend as a model for GUI developers.
>
>We are talking about GUI tools to produce what? Crap?

Nobody likes filling in forms but how do you suggest converting a form
based app into something loveable. What interface would make you love
adding a new contact to your address book?

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#103684

Gordon Levi <gordon@address.invalid>:

> Nobody likes filling in forms but how do you suggest converting a form
> based app into something loveable.

Straight HTML does forms just fine without CSS or JavaScript, yet few
can resist.

> What interface would make you love adding a new contact to your
> address book?

In my case, the address book is a ~/.mailrc file, which I edit using
emacs.


Marko

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#103690

On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 11:48:25 AM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Gordon Levi :
> 
> > Nobody likes filling in forms but how do you suggest converting a form
> > based app into something loveable.
> 
> Straight HTML does forms just fine without CSS or JavaScript, yet few
> can resist.

Abjure JS/CSS is a virtue? Why?
In any case with or without its still a form not plain (printf/scanf) text.
So what exactly are we talking of?

> 
> > What interface would make you love adding a new contact to your
> > address book?
> 
> In my case, the address book is a ~/.mailrc file, which I edit using
> emacs.

Even in the emacs world people find this painful enough that they use tools 
like bbdb and more modern ones like org-contacts

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#103693

On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 6:20 PM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 11:48:25 AM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Gordon Levi :
>>
>> > Nobody likes filling in forms but how do you suggest converting a form
>> > based app into something loveable.
>>
>> Straight HTML does forms just fine without CSS or JavaScript, yet few
>> can resist.
>
> Abjure JS/CSS is a virtue? Why?
> In any case with or without its still a form not plain (printf/scanf) text.
> So what exactly are we talking of?

Abjuring JS may be a virtue (or at least, making it a non-critical
part of your web site), but CSS is important to document structure and
layout. The combination of HTML and CSS provides a logical structure
with separate styling, which IMO is an excellent thing. It's possible
to accomplish the same goal in other ways (for instance, Markdown
source code for the structure and HTML for the layout), but CSS
provides enough flexibility to do this just fine on its own.

Incidentally, HTML+CSS is another excellent example of code being used
to create a visual effect. While there *are* WYSIWYG HTML editors, I'm
not familiar with any WYISWYG HTML+CSS editors, and I much more often
see a fast-turnaround code editing system such as codepen.io - you
change the HTML in one box, or the CSS in another, and the result down
below changes in real-time. It wouldn't be too hard to create
something like this for a GUI, and it'd remove some of that feeling of
non-interactivity while still retaining all the benefits of code above
drag-and-drop.

ChrisA

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#103697

Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>:

> CSS is important to document structure and layout.

Most Web pages had better not concern themselves with layout but with
info content only. Unfortunately, HTML is a dirt-poor language for
markup (no extensibility or programmability) so I can understand the
temptation to side-step it with CSS.

CSS has tons of esoterics but seems to lack some very basic facilities
so I can understand the temptation to side-step it with JavaScript.

> Incidentally, HTML+CSS is another excellent example of code being used
> to create a visual effect. While there *are* WYSIWYG HTML editors, I'm
> not familiar with any WYISWYG HTML+CSS editors, and I much more often
> see a fast-turnaround code editing system such as codepen.io - you
> change the HTML in one box, or the CSS in another, and the result down
> below changes in real-time. It wouldn't be too hard to create
> something like this for a GUI, and it'd remove some of that feeling of
> non-interactivity while still retaining all the benefits of code above
> drag-and-drop.

Yes, WYSIWYG is a doomed approach. There's a difference between input
and output.


Marko

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#103722

On 2016-02-29, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:

> Abjuring JS may be a virtue (or at least, making it a non-critical
> part of your web site),

Except the marketing people who decide on the requirements will never,
ever settle for what you can do with plain HTML/CSS.

In my experience, HTML/CSS makes a pretty awful GUI for a non-trivial
application.  With some Javascript and sweat, you can almost make it
to mediocre.

> but CSS is important to document structure and layout. The
> combination of HTML and CSS provides a logical structure with
> separate styling, which IMO is an excellent thing.

Indeed.  Separating the visual appearnce stuff from the "structure"
makes it a lot easier to deal with both, and the result is a lot more
robust as well.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! The Korean War must
                                  at               have been fun.
                              gmail.com            

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#103728

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 2:43 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 2016-02-29, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Abjuring JS may be a virtue (or at least, making it a non-critical
>> part of your web site),
>
> Except the marketing people who decide on the requirements will never,
> ever settle for what you can do with plain HTML/CSS.
>
> In my experience, HTML/CSS makes a pretty awful GUI for a non-trivial
> application.  With some Javascript and sweat, you can almost make it
> to mediocre.

That's why I said "may be". A pure CGI web site is pretty annoying
unless it's really brilliantly done. However, I prefer to see JS
restricted to actual interaction, instead of making it critical to the
basic layout. A lot of web sites these days load nothing but a script
that goes and loads everything else, while you gaze at a splash
screen. IMO that's unideal.

However, even that is probably a losing battle. :(

ChrisA

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#103748

On 2016-02-29, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 2:43 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2016-02-29, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Abjuring JS may be a virtue (or at least, making it a non-critical
>>> part of your web site),
>>
>> Except the marketing people who decide on the requirements will never,
>> ever settle for what you can do with plain HTML/CSS.
>>
>> In my experience, HTML/CSS makes a pretty awful GUI for a non-trivial
>> application.  With some Javascript and sweat, you can almost make it
>> to mediocre.
>
> That's why I said "may be". A pure CGI web site is pretty annoying
> unless it's really brilliantly done. However, I prefer to see JS
> restricted to actual interaction, instead of making it critical to the
> basic layout.

Agreed. That's an excellent rule to follow.  The introduction of the
"flex" display type in CSS has (for me) completely eliminated the need
for JS to concern itself with display and layout (other than the basic
hide/show enable/disable of optional elements as part of an
application's interaction logic).

I don't know why it took so long for CSS to grok the basic idea that
you almost always want to specify that some blocks should
expand/contract to fill available space and some should remain at
their "natural" size.  GUI toolkits and markup languages like LaTeX
seem to have understood that this was a very basic need for many
decades, but there was never a clean, reliable way to do it CSS until
recently.

> A lot of web sites these days load nothing but a script
> that goes and loads everything else, while you gaze at a splash
> screen. IMO that's unideal.

:)

"Unideal" is too kind -- I would described it as something more like
"the evil spawn of brain-dead incompetents".  I often wonder what
sequence of decisions/accidents get people to "solutions" like that.

> However, even that is probably a losing battle. :(

At least the era of using giant tables full of fragements of a single
large gif image to do page-layout seems to have died a long-overdue
death...

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! does your DRESSING
                                  at               ROOM have enough ASPARAGUS?
                              gmail.com            

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#103751

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 5:17 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> A lot of web sites these days load nothing but a script
>> that goes and loads everything else, while you gaze at a splash
>> screen. IMO that's unideal.
>
> :)
>
> "Unideal" is too kind -- I would described it as something more like
> "the evil spawn of brain-dead incompetents".  I often wonder what
> sequence of decisions/accidents get people to "solutions" like that.

I do understand where the thinking comes from, though.

1) Pages should be more responsive than the 1990s-style CGI model,
where every action is a link or button click that completely replaces
the current page.
2) Many actions therefore must be implemented using JavaScript, an
AJAX call (if necessary), and DOM manipulation to change just the
parts of the page that need to be changed.
3) This means that the entire content of the page must be under JS
control, and the entire "user-accessible" part of the back end should
be returning JSON, since that's what #2 requires.
4) If everything has to be under JS control, why not just send out a
stub to start with, and begin everything with an AJAX call? That way,
we don't need to maintain two of everything!

The logic is reasonable. Deduplication is valuable. But the result is
a web site that has a stubby splash screen until the back end
responds, and that's why I call it merely "unideal" rather than "evil
spawn &c".

>> However, even that is probably a losing battle. :(
>
> At least the era of using giant tables full of fragements of a single
> large gif image to do page-layout seems to have died a long-overdue
> death...

Oh yes, I do not miss those days! And it was compounded by browsers
that, when they started receiving a <table> tag, drew nothing
whatsoever until they received the </table> and could lay the whole
thing out. Add to that slow internet connections, so it would likely
be some seconds or even a minute or more before the </table> arrives,
and you have a perfect recipe for frustration.

But no web site these days would ever make you wait for its contents.
'Course not.

ChrisA

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#103694

Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>:

> On Monday, February 29, 2016 at 11:48:25 AM UTC+5:30, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Gordon Levi :
>> 
>> > Nobody likes filling in forms but how do you suggest converting a form
>> > based app into something loveable.
>> 
>> Straight HTML does forms just fine without CSS or JavaScript, yet few
>> can resist.
>
> Abjure JS/CSS is a virtue? Why?

I have used some minute amounts of CSS when I have wanted to pay
attention to the aesthetics (<URL:
http://pacujo.net/esperanto/literaturo/juho/>).

However, then the point is conveying/exchanging info, straight HTML is
all that is needed: <URL: http://pacujo.net/esperanto/course/>.

As for why you should avoid JS/CSS, Web pages open very slowly, jump
around wildly during rendering and have unexpected artifacts (not to
mention the numerous data collection abuses) when they are encumbered
with truckloads of state-of-the-art web dev gimmicks.


Marko

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