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On Saturday 26 November 2005 2:02 am, Matt Lee wrote: > Why are we still writing shell scripts 1. Fast. 2. Lots of examples. 3. easy to test. > , are GUI applications so > difficult to write, really? Yes, they are. OSX is a classic example - the GUI applications still don't do what you can do via a script, adapting or editing a GUI application is an enormous task. Tweaking a GUI to use a new format or change to a different algorithm takes far too long - I'd estimate three orders of magnitude higher. > I can't help but feel more users would > GNU/Linux if there were easy to use, GUI, applications as found in > proprietary operating systems. ? You mean for the desktop. GUI's have no place on a server - an area where GNU/Linux is particularly strong. Have you actually WRITTEN any GUI applications for the desktop, Matt? 1. There are precious few GUI tools to write a GUI task so you're back to text editors which might as well mean vi or emacs (because they are fast and integrate well with autotools) 2. Most GUI applications are still in C which means there are precious few examples for newbies to locate and learn to use. Everything users want to adapt on their current systems is controlled by bash scripts, usually in /etc/init.d or similar. Testament enough that a GUI approach is simply unworkable. Why assume everyone wanting a config modification HAS a GUI to use? And how to assume WHICH GUI toolkit could be available? Not everyone installs kdelibs or gnomelibs and Perl/Tck or Python GUI tools just look like the dog's dinner. The whole point of a GUI is the look - scripts just work. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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