A Call to Arms!

[tombo@mail.on-line.co.uk (Richard King)]

United we Stand - Divided we Fall
 
Everybody knows that one, and Apple users have more reason than most to
recognise the truth in it. So I have a suggestion: since Apple has,
apparently, decided to forego further development of the GS, why don't we
set up a loose cooperative to continue it? No egos, no hierarchy, and
governed by enlightened self-interest.
Like the internet.
 
The main purpose would be to avoid duplication of effort, and the method
would be to set up and adhere to a number of conventions, concerning the
form and function of additions and extensions to the system. 
 
For example, we have the Toolkit: it has a lot of very useful stuff in
it, but there are some tools which are 'missing' - a three-dimensional
extension to QuickDraw springs to mind, as does a Generalised Data Tool,
providing all sorts of different data-organisations, such as Trees (of
all types), Sparse arrays, Nets (of various kinds) and so on. Most
particularly, we could use a Program tool, which would provide all the
'standard' functions such as Printing, Font selection and so on, leaving
little more than the dialog-handlers and Window-update procedure to be
written. Another approach to this would be to develop a standard
template, which would only need the most minor editing. Ideally, we would
be able to resurrect GeneSys and/or Foundation, and develop them into
complete program-generation systems. At an extreme, we would even have a
Program Generator Tool.
 
Why do we need to write almost exactly the same code every time? Just how
different _are_ the 'standard' parts of most programs? The differences
come in the dialogs, and the kind of material handled by the window, but
in little else. Doesn't that strike you as being a perfect situation in
which a Tool would be of greatest use?
 
In fact, I would bet serious money (and I don't gamble) that the longer
term ideas which the GS development team had _did_ include such ideas,
and quite probably even more radical ones. Do you think any of them could
be persuaded to reveal what they did discuss about the future of the GS,
off-duty, over cans of beer and pretzels? They were one of the most
creative programming teams ever assembled, and their crazy ruminations
would, I feel sure, form a stupendous objective, as well as providing
many of the clues needed to achieve it.
 
We have, IMNSHO, one of the best engineered, possibly even the best-ever,
'puters. It isn't fast, by some people's standards, in that it doesn't
have a clock-speed approaching the ultra-violet, but as we all know, we
can do a lot with it, and you have to get some very serious hardware
before our machine is outpaced. But we need to _think_, and _keep_ _on_
_thinking_ about the way our machine works, and where that can take us,
instead of simply being grateful for what we have. And having thought and
discussed, we need to DO. But we need to do it together, if we are to
have any chance of not wasting our efforts.
 
A moi, mes braves!
 

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Obey little, question much - Walt Whitman | The only thing my GS hasn't
Specialisation is for ants - Lazarus Long | got is a go-faster stripe.
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