On 23/10/2008, at 1:06 AM, Lukas Renggli wrote:
I disagree. I exclusively use OB in productive development on a daily bases for over 2 years now.
Decent selection support? Multiple selection? Dynamic filtering? Rich labels? Trees? Multiple 'definition' edges? OB is usable today, and I use it exclusively as well, but my point is that is should be a lot better. Why settle for 'great concept, ok realization'? I want something 'exceptional'. I think OB is a great start, and an excellent piece of work, but it doesn't stop it being a prototype that has been tested in the field and found to require structural modifications and some rethinking, as opposed to the hacks that have polluted what is a beautiful model.
b) shouldn't include any action abstraction because that's best handled in a completely different and system-wide fashion;
I disagree. OB provides this system-wide abstraction. It is the fault of the other tools that don't use these abstractions. For example, I've written a process browser, debugger, inspector and several other tools in OB and they all benefit from the commands that already exist and that other people write as extensions (e.g. open a hierarchy browser from within the debugger).
I agree that the abstraction is not optimal in all cases (e.g. text commands, applicability tests, ...), but it is definitely better than anything else I've seen so far.
I have (IMO) a better system, called Commando, implemented in VW and now in Squeak. It has the following advantages: 1. Not tied to OB. 2. Commands are trivially enumerable, so a selection and discovery interface is natural. 3. Commands are applicable not only to UI elements, but also across- domains where the UI exposes a semantic marker/object. Thus the concept of an action is separated from the presentation of objects representing command parameters. 5. Commands can be easily structured into menus in both a context- sensitive, per-window and global manner, including platform-standard- specific positioning, as well as allowing manual semantically/HUI- factors directed grouping/ordering/accelerators, orthogonal to their definition. A video of it in action in VW is here: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/antony/blogView?showComments=true&p...
This is what happens, when an appealing and widely adapted projects entirely lacks a form of leadership.
IMO success is dependent on having either one, or a very few people who share a vision and taste, explicitly in control/gatekeeping, applying *their* taste and judgement (technical and aesthetic), and guiding a project in accordance with their specific vision. That's what I branched off on my own rather than joining a group, and naturally why no-one else has joined me :) I maybe completely out to lunch, but it's *my* lunch. Antony Blakey ------------- CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd Ph: 0438 840 787 Some defeats are instalments to victory. -- Jacob Riis