GORM 1.0 Release to Take on GNOME/KDE? 451
qa'lth writes "Today marks the occasion of the release of Gorm 1.0, the Interface Builder for the GNUstep project, and with its release, comes the obsolesence of the GNOME and KDE projects. Finally, today, Free Software users can enjoy the power of a well-designed, powerful object-oriented system derived from OpenStep, legacy to the acclaimed MacOSX, through GNUstep, our loving reimplementation of the OpenStep standard."
Riiight. (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiight. 'Nuff Said.
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, gnustep has been themed, and it can look pretty good. From a UI perspective, I really like how consistent and polished the interface is, even when it's in the default "prosaic" grey. And it's not only easy to learn, it's also easy to use. From a usability perspective, I think it's much more intelligently designed than Gnome or KDE.
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Interesting)
Then the guy must have a very good sense of irony ;) It is interesting to see how (at the moment) slashdot tries to decide whether it was a joke or not :)) I wonder which reading of this story will win out :) Currently I can't decide - but yeah, at first sight, it didn't occur to me that it was a joke :)
I'm not a developer - but follow the development of various desktop closely (mainly KDE and enlightenment). I'm also a thinkerer, and I like to try out alternative desktops once in a while, including Afterstep, windowmaker, and the likes (that follow the same UI paradigm seen in gnustep) - and I noticed that there was very little or no development at all of these desktops in the past few (3-4) years. I have to admit that both wmaker and afterstep are different from other desktopts, but I won't apostrophize that difference as revolutionary. And I don't see where it would take (even with rapid development tools) the current desktop paradigms (or how it compares to future ones, like plasma). In short: I don't see the vision, the why this is soo cool aspect. You wrote: "From a usability perspective, I think it's much more intelligently designed than Gnome or KDE." - yeah, but whose usability? It is really really difficult to define an objective usability perspective. I don't dispute your claim, I just don't understand it :))
Re:Riiight. (Score:2, Funny)
Does that mean you tinker around with thinking?
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Informative)
I follow the GNUstep-dev mailing lists (big fan, myself), and I can assure you the poster was making a joke. Among the GNUstep developer community I do not think there is any misconception as to how "complete" the system is. I use it, and I write apps for GNUstep using Gorm and ProjectCenter, but there is a lot of ground to cover before obsoleting the likes of GNOME.
Amusingly, there was recently a thread about trying to get the release of Gorm 1.0 announced here. Plenty of folks said that they had submitted the story numerous times, only to be rejected. There is perhaps a feeling that the editors deny the existence of anthing that isn't KDE/GNOME, Microsoft/Google/Apple, etc., and perhaps the poster just didn't have very high hopes that the story would even get through.
Re:Riiight. (Score:3, Funny)
just a little more attention to your spellering and your grammarishness and you'll have the complete package.
Re:Riiight. (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, the OPENSTEP/NEXTSTEP UI has largely been considered one of the most elegant and usable interfaces to have been created. It's extremely intuitive, and while the GNUSTEP work isn't there yet, the "completion" of Gorm.app is a very good sign, as the interface builder is the foundation to creating the wonderful UI of classic NeXT applications. NeXT spent a ton of money hiring some of the best UI designers in the world, and the UI shows it. People laud over OS X's ability to hide the Unix from the newbie user, but I don't think many of them know that this had existed since the '90s beginning with NEXTSTEP.
Apple broke alot of the inherent intuitiveness of the NeXT UI when they moved to OS X, which isn't necessarly bad though, as intuitiveness != familiarity and their changes were mainly to make existing Mac OS users comfortable.
I'm impressed that the GNUStep project is still able to have milestones like this.
Re:Riiight. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Riiight. (Score:2)
GJC
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Informative)
the dock [roard.com]
like GTK, Everything looks better once it is themed [roard.com]
look at this [jesseross.com]
The new icons are really nice too
gorm [jesseross.com]
help [jesseross.com]
installer [jesseross.com]
Re:Riiight. (Score:2)
Re:Riiight. (Score:2)
Re:Riiight. (Score:5, Insightful)
As we all know, how pretty your user interface looks is the best barometer of how easy it is to use, how simple it is to program for, how much leverage applications get from the underlying API, and how powerful applications written using the underlying toolkit will be.
American readers should append the word "NOT" onto the end of the last paragraph.
Gorm and GNUstep are mostly about the underlying API. It's possible to rapidly build incredibly powerful applications using Gorm - significantly faster than you can with the KDE or GNOME toolkits.
I beg to differ (Score:3, Insightful)
If the default desktop is an eyesore, keeps its menus and options in strange places, and has a lot of confusing buttons that don't explain what they do or what they're for, it doesn't matter how powerful the environment is.
Let me say it again: It doesn't matter how powerful the environment is.
Because most users will balk at the environment I've j
Re:You're close (Score:2)
Let me guess... you sat on a cactus this morning and now you are venting your pain in words?
Re:You're close (Score:3, Insightful)
Good - don't use it then. Sell your Mac on ebay and buy a new Linux box. However, while you are trolling - go take a long look at modern Linux desktops, then go look at OS X. You'll probably be supprised to notice that alot of the "good" functionality in KDE and GNOME was swiped directly from OS X.
It doesn't even have a working native terminal program (one which al
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF??? Not even Microsoft would dare make such blatant and patently false claims. I'm all for marketing but this is unadulterated bullshit and I don't even want to look at something that starts with BS like this!
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GNUstep targets Cocoa (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that Cocoa is a moving target. Mac OS X 10.3 had a major update when they added in Data Bindings along with associated technologies of Key-Value Observing, Key-Value Coding and Key-Value Validation. 10.4 has had the addition of Core Data - there's quite a few new classes in that lot.
With a bit of luck though Gorm will get people more enthusiastic about GNUstep and bring more developers along to work on the core APIs, helping to fill in the gaps
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a pity that GNOME was written way back when instead of GNUstep being the free desktop of choice - had all that effort gone into GNUstep, it would have been pretty easy to target both Mac OS X and Linux/*BSD instead of having to write separa
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:2)
Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! (Score:2)
Before I even opened the link I thought it was pretty clear that he was joking about that and seeing the screenshots only confirmed that.
That's confidence for you... (Score:3, Funny)
Nothing like a little optimism, eh? Quick question, what are you smoking and who's your dealer? I gotta get some of that stuff...
Re:That's confidence for you... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's confidence for you... (Score:2)
Err.. wait..
Re:So, why all the jokes? (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like this [dromasoftware.com][1]? Not only is it visually attractive, it's been carefully designed for usability as well - for example only controls that can be manipulated with the mouse have a gradient. The default theme for GNUstep is still the original NeXT look which, while dated in appearance, is very usable (although possibly because the developers put more effort into the feel than the look). Many of the GNUstep developers
who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
everyone is busy with eye candy and other useless add-ons and ignore basic operability and useability.
Re:who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Re:who cares (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
I use drag and drop a lot when using Mac OS X simply because it works so well. Dragging files to the trash, dragging files to applications to open them, dragging images off web pages to save them etc.. it just comes naturally after a while (whereas digging through menus to find features like that has to be learnt every time). And with Exposé, you never need to rearrange windows.
Just because Windows (and therefore Linux, as sadly the linux desktops have heavily copied windows as opposed to OS X) can't do drag and drop effectively doesn't mean it's inviable. It just means that it's been made inviable through poor design.
Windows -- Bizarro Edition? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just because Windows (and therefore Linux, as sadly the linux desktops have heavily copied windows as opposed to OS X) can't do drag and drop effectively
Odd, every one of the examples you mentioned works in MY Windows. Have you screwed yours up somehow or are you using some bizarre version? Perhaps you meant
Re:Windows -- Bizarro Edition? (Score:3, Informative)
Odd, every one of the examples you mentioned works in MY Windows.
I don't get why the previous poster used those examples because they're the same function-wise, but there is a difference in the GUI implementations. The thing about the Windows drag and drop I remember (it's been a while) is that many times it simply changes the cursor to indicate you're dragging something. For example, when you're dragging a picture off a web page onto the desktop, or when you are dragging highlighted text. In OS X, you
Re:who cares (Score:3, Informative)
2) OS X was partialy inspired by NeXTStep, which also inspired GnuSTEP (through the OpenStep standard). Which is *what the article's about* and which existed before OS X.
BTW, Expose just rearranges windows for you, so saying that it makes it unneccesary to rearrange windows is a bit of a stretch.
Just for the record, Drag-n-drop is only useful for simple actions - it becomes a nuiscance for more complic
Re:who cares (Score:3, Interesting)
DnD (Score:3, Interesting)
Because you can rearrange, open/close, and otherwise manipulate windows between the selection and the "drop",
Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2, Insightful)
I know Objective-C (I do my modelling in Cocoa), and I know how the dynamic bit works, but to say that it cannot be done in C++ is BS in principle. It cannot be done in the same way, but it surely can be done.
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2)
Heck, actually everything is done in asm!
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2)
That is a tenuous argument at best; nonetheless without knowing the OpenStep standard there might be some validity to it - particularly if the standard specifies such functionality as is native to Objective-C.
Having never used Ob
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2)
So, can you point to some operating system kernel written in Perl?
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing this in C++ would be possible. Doing this using the C++ class model, would not. I would have to write a set of introspection methods into C++. The most important thing, however, is that my Objective-C code worked w
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2, Insightful)
That's crap, and if I had a blogger account I'd tell him where to go.
4) Dynamic binding: so you make a baseclass with all the common interfaces you'll need. If that's not good enough, C++ does support dynamic downcasting with run-time typing information.
1) Categories: I'm not 100% sure what he means but these sound like C#'s attributes. So build this kind of mechanism into your baseclass.
3) Protocols - WTF? If that
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2)
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:2)
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:3, Insightful)
Reminds me of the days when I used WindowMaker. WindowMaker was also a GNUStep project, and a damn good window manager at the time.
I welcome a more "UNIXy" desktop environment vs KDE or Gnome. To me, those are way too much like the Microsoft Windows interface. Personally, I don't like any of them. Honestly, all GUIs nowadays seem really dated when compared to OS X. Yeah, yeah, call me a fanboy or zealot, but for the loo
Re:Graphical Object Relationship Modeller (Score:3, Informative)
In the end X11 is a
GuuuuuuuuhhhHHH!!! (Score:4, Funny)
alternatively:
Gorm nuts!
Corn nuts!!
Gorm nuts!
Coooorn nuts!!
Gooorm nuts!!!
Cooooooooorn!!!!!!
Gooooooooooorrm!!!!!
Re:GuuuuuuuuhhhHHH!!! (Score:2)
Lahndon!
Essex!
Lahndon!
Essex!
Knock em dead GORM! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Knock em dead GORM! (Score:2)
Half a marketing jobbie (Score:3, Interesting)
-1 Flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe... No. (Score:5, Informative)
And Gorm is supposed to be Interface Builder for GNUStep.
That said, it's not GNOME or KDE. You've still got to write that whole boring desktop thing. Gorm might make it a lot easier to write all the stuff that's still missing but saying it made GNOME and KDE obsolete is just plain bullshit.
Re:Maybe... No. (Score:3, Informative)
That's what GNUStep is for. The whole point here is that now the GNUStep project has a complete, released desktop development environment.
That said...this is essentially the equivalent of announcing GNU/Hurd, 1.0, thus making the Linux kernel obsolete.
Over the top (Score:3, Funny)
Gorm! (Score:2)
Lighten up (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lighten up (Score:2, Offtopic)
I thought that we on Slashdot are supposed to intellgent beings, not the kind of L33T D00DZ who have to have obvious humor put in <joke></joke> tags, with a liberal helping of
But look like I'm wrong (joke, LOL!ll111!11,
Re:Lighten up (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, incidentally, this is also a good way to create publicity for your pet project. Some would argue that this is page hit "whoring". Not that it is not a legitimate way of creating interest, but I understand those who have issues with this kind of "humor". In all honesty, you have to attribute a very good sense of irony (self-parody?) to the author to take the "joke" - and I don't know him enough to do just that. I don't exclude the possibility that what he said was in jest, but I understand those who get "riled up".
Re:Lighten up (Score:2)
One slight jab at the precious Gnome or KDE and you're bound to get over-reactions from people who don't understand what GNUstep and Gorm are all about.
GNUstep is all about the API folks. It's a dynamic object oriented API. Alien concepts to GNOME and KDE folks who are used to their static C/C++ APIs. It lets very cool things be possible, as can be seen in the demonstration videos for Gorm.
The downers are it's a bit of a different paradigm, and effective use of the API requires a dynamic OO lan
open step vs cocoa (Score:4, Interesting)
The third and final thing is the appearance. GNUstep will never be popular looking thw way it does now. The default look looks too much like 1994 and unfortunately, many people will judge it based on that.
OSX + linux cross platform development would be a HUGE boost to linux.
Re:open step vs cocoa (Score:3, Informative)
the bright side? (Score:2, Funny)
From what I see, it looks every bit as eye-pleasing as OS/2!
/sarcasm
Re:the bright side? (Score:2)
No, nobody can possibly make that claim. OS/2 was the max, the ultra, the pinnacle of perfection that no other OS can ever match. People who didn't like it just weren't 31337 enough to understand it.
Oh, wait. The shrooms wore off!
GNUstep is another choice, not a replacement. (Score:5, Informative)
Me thinks that this poster is a bit sarcastic.
But whatever. GNUstep is a mature and well thought out system for power users. Not my cup of tea, but in absence of Gnome 2.4 and newer software I would probably be using it.
It's also great for systems with lower resources. X terminals, Pentium 2 machines, and the like. Very nice and is picking up the slack that KDE and Gnome leave as they race to beat Microsoft Vista (hopefully before Vista reaches critical mass 2-3 years after it finally gets released (MS still saying it's end of next year?))
If your like me and KDE makes you twitch nerviously, or unlike my you don't have a gig of RAM to deal with Gnome's concept of "simplicity thru complexity" then definately give GNUstep-based systems a look. (GNUstep is actually the API stuff, other projects do the desktop bits)
The nice thing about GNUstep that may attract people is that it's a implimentation for OpenSTEP.
Software previously developed for the Openstep API is what Apple used to create the 'modern' Cocoa half of OS X. (were as the 'older' half is Carbon which follows along the lines of OS 9 and OS 8).
Effectively this makes Cocoa a extended version of Openstep. GNUstep and Cocoa then share a high degree of API compatability. That means that if you write for Cocoa you can much more easily port your applications to run in Linux on Gnustep API and visa versa.
Looks like I'll have to stay... (Score:3, Funny)
The Young And The Gormless (Score:2, Funny)
Gorm Videos Demonstrations (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit tedious to explain with words what Gorm is all about -- it's much simpler to actually *see* it :-)
If you have only one video to see, check the one about the custom palette [xdev.org] -- but the other are interesting too :-) (the StepTalk one demonstrate a creation of a simple calculator *entirely* in Gorm, using the StepTalk palette, which let you code in various languages).
Re:Gorm Videos Demonstrations (Score:2)
If you do not like the NeXT'ish look and feel that GNUstep defaults to, you're free to use themes [roard.com].
Re:Gorm Videos Demonstrations (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you notice that there's actually sound (as in me, talking and making sense of all the mousewaving) in those videos ? :-)
what I'm seeing here is Visual Basic, with object orientation. Not to knock it because of this.
Frankly, no, it's vastly different. Or, in a way, yes, it's "VB with object orientation"... but:
So yes, it's "VB with OO" if you want to see it that way :-D but it's FAR from following the "VB paradigm".
The rumors of KDE/Gnome's demise.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why waste time trying to make my desktop work and act like Windows(tm)(r)(C)(and possible 666) when all I really want is to get my work done without all the bling?
--
A random sig
Dynamic
Saying nothing
Gormless (Score:2, Funny)
I was about to call that a gormless prediction, but then I realised that that was the whole point... -.-
1.0 already!? (Score:3, Funny)
enlighten me please (Score:2)
In other news ... (Score:5, Funny)
More information, missing links (Score:2, Informative)
Quick Kirk! (Score:2)
--
Evan
obsolutely (Score:2)
Why don't these developers want to take over the world by first taking over their "competition"? Like making GORM run on GNOME/KDE? Even GNOME and KDE apps run on each other when their libraries are installed. If GORM really is that good, it should interoperate, and suck up all the oxygen to emerge as the best. That's the kind of innovation hothouse open source allows.
Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
Um, (Score:3, Insightful)
It used to be a simple thing. If something is presented in a fairly straightforward, just the facts manner it was probably serious. If it makes ridiculous claims about how it will make all of its competitors obsolete, cure seventeen fatal diseases and then get you a beer while walking your dog then you could be pretty certain that it was meant to be a joke.
I used to even be able to laugh at the joke press releases, knowing that they were nothing more than way-over-the-top satire of the dumbest PR pieces in the world. Now... I have to look carefully to make sure that I'm not actually reading the object of that satire instead.
Thank you, PR flacks of the Internet, for lowering the bar so far that we need a shovel just to see the dent that it left.
Tongue firmly planted in cheek... (Score:5, Informative)
For all of those of you who can't take a joke, tongue was firmly planted in cheek regarding the "KDE/GNOME obsolesence" bit of the post. While I didn't write the post, I know who did and that part, at least, was meant as a joke. Also look on it as something of a commentary on slashdot itself: sometimes it's impossible to get anything on here unless it's sensationalistic or overly stated.
I, personally, tried posting 6 times before giving up. Imagine my suprise at seeing this when I woke up this morning!
Later, GJC
Let's cut through some of the crud here... (Score:4, Informative)
First, the way the interface looks is irrelevant. A GNUstep theme engine is available here [gna.org]. There's a nice theme in progress called Nesedah (mockup [dromasoftware.com] and screenshot of IRC client [sourceforge.net] along with OS X comparison shot [sourceforge.net])
Second, why is this such a big deal? Don't QT, Visual Basic, and Delphi provide the same RAD approach? No. I've used all of those tools and they just don't stack up. QT is about as good as you're going to get out of a static compile-time-oriented C++ approach. But it's not as simple or direct as a runtime-oriented OO solution like Smalltalk or Objective-C. This is the power of Cocoa/OpenStep/GNUstep.
Delphi, .NET, and QT GUI designers focus on generating code. This is cumbersome and brittle. But Apple/NeXT's Interface Builder and GNUstep's Gorm take a different approach. They actually instantiate objects, set state, create inter-object connnections, and then persist the in-memory objects to disk. When your application is loaded, these objects are unarchived and your application connects to them. This prevents the OO-mocking approach of subclassing a Window class just to create your own instance--something that always makes me laugh but is ubiquitous in the Windows world and has been blindly copied by KDE and GNOME.
Finally, the poster is not a native speaker of English and clearly was not able to convey the sense of humor intended.
Re:The Real Question is... (Score:2)
Re:Desktop wars. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully never! As long as it lasts, there is competition, meaning rapid pace of development, choice, etc..
Re:Thats one ugly interface (Score:3, Informative)
First: ugly appearance is not equal to non-funcionality. Flashy and colorful does not mean functional. If you want it to be pretty, use Camaelon as depicted here [xdev.org]. The Camaelon bundle is in the progress of being included into the main GNUstep distribution. Themability was low priority to the project, compared to functionality.
Besides that, if you would like to know, then I have seen many expert applications that are "ugly" because of some obsolete GUI toolkits. And guess what? The experts use it and do not
Re:Thats one ugly interface (Score:2)
Of course it does, because Camaelon is "just" a theme engine. You're supposed to install a theme and actually use it, otherwise Camaelon will default to the original NeXT'ish look.
So, use a theme that pleases you, just as you (in general) do using any other desktop environment.
Re:Death of KDE and Gnome (Score:2)
-everphilski-
Re:Mirror? (Score:2, Informative)
GNUstep [mirrordot.org]
Re:whuh???? (Score:2)
Re:Apple? (Score:2)
Having used XCode I must say that its a very good way of doing things, though once in a while I'd like to know what's actually going on (i.e. what's in a
Anyway, it's a little sad that Objective C is rout
I smell a lawsuit coming.. (Score:2)
The real beauty of it all, is when all is said and done at the end of the day, the GPL will ensure Avalon becomes GPL and Free Software for all to use. Just think, the simplicity of Gorm and the beautiful Avalon, a happy merger for all enthusiasts. Ironically, this WILL spell the end of GNOME, KDE, XFce and even fvvwm!
Microsoft will regret the
Re:Haha, only marketing (Score:2)
Acura TL very nice car!
Features of Gorm vs. Glade (Score:5, Informative)
So from that standpoint alone Gorm is compares favorably. I think you better step back from that "BMW" for a while and ask yourself what you're really getting.
GJC
Re:Trail Mix? (Score:4, Funny)
An all too common mistake, Mr. Wiggum. The word you're thinking of is 'gort', the tasty, yet completely moistureless mix of nuts, rasins, and small freeze-dried squirrels. The term 'gorm' is actually the species name of a Star Trek lizard (Capt. Kirk owns a pair of gorm skin boots).
But don't worry, the 'gor' words are often confusing. For example, many people forget that 'gorp' is the name of an alien robotic policeman who destroyed life as we know it in the classic SciFi movie It's a Wonderful Day to Stand Still on the Earth. And the word 'gork' (meaning "I knew that") was coined by writer Robert "Bob" Heinlein for his novel Strange Sex in a Strange Novel. There are hundreds of other 'gor' words (well, 26 max), but I don't have time to cover them all!
Hope this little chat has cleared up your lexographic apostrophe. I know it's helped mine.
K5 has that (Score:2)
Re:What fresh hell IS this? (Score:2)
The symbol that is used for WindowMaker's dock was originally created for the GNUstep project by Pyrros Atheos and was later used by the WindowMaker window manager team.
GJC