Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!usc!hacgate!ashtate!dbase!awd
From: awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: New to NeXT
Summary: Unix foundation is slick
Keywords: User Interface Revolution, Where's the Beef
Message-ID: <86@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 31 May 89 15:56:15 GMT
References: <85@dbase.UUCP> <873@adobe.UUCP>
Organization: Ashton Tate Devlopment Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 35

In article <873@adobe.UUCP>, greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) writes:
> Did you expect a revolution in the user interface guidelines?  
> 
> Anyway, there are major steps forward in software.  The Interface
> Builder, for example, keeps you from having to write any code to
> support the interface.  You should really get a machine (or at least go
> look at one somewhere).  The documentation doesn't do it justice.

Well, yes, I _did_ hope for some eye-opening concepts in the user
interface guidelines, because that's what hit me over the head the first
time I read Inside Macintosh (Dec '83).  But you're right--there is no
reason to change UI guidelines that work.  In fact, I've found subtle,
unheralded ways in which the NeXT interface supports the "same old"
guidelines better than the Macintosh.  For example, buttons.  The shading
possible on NeXT allows a much more visceral feel, I imagine, which makes
it a better model of a real-world button than the Mac's.

Looking deeper into Inside Mac (looking all through it, in fact), you begin
to realize that the operating system kernal is kin to the operating system
in an Apple ][--an afterthought, not a foundation.  The best thing about
NeXT may be that it's a Unix box with a floptical disk to solve the mass
storage problems associated with personal Unix.

I'm curious to learn more about the Interface Builder.  It sounds like
ResEdit expanded into a useful development and customization tool.  As a
Mac developer, I can work with ResEdit (and more powerful tools) to create
resources that my end users can customize, somewhat.  Am I right that IB
extends this concept to make it useful for developers and accessible to
end users?

Lastly, I would love to get my hands on a machine or go see one.  Where 
is there one to be seen?  I'm near JPL and CalTech, not to mention
Businessland...

/alastair/