Re: remember some of the architecture of BeOS?

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Re: remember some of the architecture of BeOS?
by Aaron J. Seigo on Thursday 24/Feb/2005, @00:54

the trick is getting, as you seem to be hinting at, useful applications of these tools out there for public consumption. just because something is theoretically cool, who cares unless it lets you do something practically useful. something so wildly useful that it becomes a compelling reason to seek out that technology.

before visicalc, PCs were not all that interesting to most people. PCs were a radical concept that had so much potential, but it sat there largely unrealized until visicalc. but visicalc didn't add any new capabilities to personal computer hardware or operating systems, but they exposed the existing capabilities through an actual, unique and useful application of those capabilities. suddenly PCs were interesting. and in demand.

database centric desktop concepts have been tossed around for many, many years, particularly in academia but even occasionally in the marketplace as well. none have faired particularly well. it's the old "PC without visicalc" problem.

and this is where working within the KDE project is important. we have a whole desktop here with hundreds of applications in KDE's CVS. most of the developers tend to be in close virtual proximity to each other. as this technology becomes available for consumption, we won't have to go out and shop for third party developers or try and tack ourselves onto the side of a web browser. as a whole community of developers, KDE can deliver an entire environment of applications that make the most of this technology from day 1.

these applications will make all the difference IMO. which is why we are designing this primarily from an application developer's needs (which includes things like reusable, easily integrated user interface components). we believe that given a functional and open-ended API to these tools that we will be amazed and surprised at the unique uses application developers find for them.

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Re: remember some of the architecture of BeOS?
by Ian Monroe on Friday 25/Feb/2005, @09:47

For being so early in development, this plan reeks of not being vaporware. :)

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