[lively-kernel] Purpose of Lively

[Philip Weaver]

Inline...

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 7:59 PM, Steve Wart <steve at wart.ca> wrote:

> I spent a bit of time with pencil and paper this weekend mocking up
> some ideas (didn't get far), not for "Lively", but something that
> started as an application of Lively, but then it morphed into a
> generic domain modelling UI. Which is something I lose myself in
> sometimes. Other people watch vampire movies. ymmv :)
>
> I also pointed my son at the tutorial site, but he got stuck on the
> WebDAV instructions to create a workspace for himself. I hit the same
> thing; I guess I should have come up with a slightly more
> comprehensive introduction for him. It might be good to post
> instructions for setting up a WebDAV server for people who want to
> play without relying on a central resource.
>

Here are old instructions I put together and used - however last summer.
http://lists.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/archive/lively-kernel/2010-April/000386.html


> Then yesterday I must have been bored at work so I had a fairly close
> look at Google's Web Toolkit (aka GWT). If you're not familiar with
> it, it's a fairly impressive open-source system that compiles Java
> into Javascript, at the same time exposing a fairly comprehensive
> widget library. Now I haven't had a lot of success with Java in my
> life, but I was impressed at what someone can do if they have a
> significant amount of committed resources to building a development
> environment. GTK/Eclipse/Windows wasn't particularly fun to work with,
> but I guess it would be good for business applications.
>

I mentioned previously on the list that I'm familiar with many web toolkits.
:-) Lively is still the most important. However also look at Vaadin: it's
very pretty and based on GWT.


> So I guess I'm asking in a roundabout way about support and funding
> and where is Lively going. Maybe there's no clear answer to that right
> now. That may be okay, because it's all out there for anyone to build
> on. But as well as thinking about Lively as an application of web
> technology it might also make sense to think of different ways Lively
> can be applied to scratch various itches that people have.
>

I am simply asking that we discuss funding on the list or off the list.
Mockups and funding. If no one involved with this project is currently
exploring funding for Lively or some derivative (non-profit or vc) then
that's a great tragedy. It's been a year since Sun abandoned this project.

There's profit and there's sustainability. Other projects sustain with a GUI
builder. Lively has one built-in. But if you look closely at some of
Lively's goals there is still a business opportunity there - hands. You
asked: is it an educational environment, or is it something people can use
to build commercial quality client-server applications?

My discussion of mockups and funding are related. Lively needs to graduate
from being a research project. If no one is exploring funding at all,
hopefully current and future mockups   will help open eyes that this project
deserves funding beyond academic support.


> I thought the tutorial was a great start (except for the part where I
> couldn't save a workspace - that kind of stopped me). It might just be
> simple things like taking the e-mail postings that Robert pointed me
> at and putting them together in a nicely formatted web page. Or
> hosting them in Lively itself. I think it's probably just as easy to
> create morphs for your mockup as it is to use the Google drawing code,
> as long as you don't get carried away. Is there an "undo"?
>

I think Jens or Robert at HPI have been drafting
undo<http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/draft/DraftUndo.xhtmlhttp://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/draft/DraftUndo.xhtml>but
I can't say that it's released. HPI is doing awesome work with
Webwerkstatt.

http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/
http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/jens/journal/journal.xhtml
http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/robert/rk-journal.xhtml
http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/projects/

Philip


> Cheers
> Steve
>
> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:33 PM, Philip Weaver <philmaker at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > This topic from Steve deserves more discussion. Please discuss.
> >
> > Philip
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Steve Wart <steve at wart.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> One thing that Apple insists on when defining the user experience for a
> >> new application is to come up with a clear statement of purpose. Not
> only
> >> what it is its intended user base (casual, professional, etc.), but also
> >> what it is explicitly not intended for. What *can't* Lively do?.
> >>
> >> I've seen a couple of posts from Dan on his vision for Lively, but I
> still
> >> wonder, is it an educational environment, or is it something people can
> use
> >> to build commercial quality client-server applications?
> >>
> >> Smalltalk evolved in rather unexpected ways I think. I don't think I'm
> >> looking for Lively on Rails, but I am interested in applications that
> appeal
> >> to mainstream development needs.
> >>
> >> Steve
> >>
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 11:51 PM, Philip Weaver <philmaker at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Steve Wart <steve at wart.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> Yes I noticed that you've done a huge amount of work. I asked about the
> >> IDE because that is how I conceptualize the object model. Once I
> understand
> >> that hopefully all the rest of it will come together for me.
> >>
> >> One thing that Apple insists on when defining the user experience for a
> >> new application is to come up with a clear statement of purpose. Not
> only
> >> what it is its intended user base (casual, professional, etc.), but also
> >> what it is explicitly not intended for. What *can't* Lively do?.
> >
> > I'd also consider the role of a user. Is the user primarily a consumer of
> > content or a producer of content? Lively allows both at the same time.
> > Sadly, most people in the world today are primarily consumers and not
> > programmers. I don't have a final answer here but read on further below.
> > Intended user base is indeed worthy of discussion.
> >
> >>
> >> I've seen a couple of posts from Dan on his vision for Lively, but I
> still
> >> wonder, is it an educational environment, or is it something people can
> use
> >> to build commercial quality client-server applications?
> >
> > I have interest in pursuing both of these but lean toward the latter,
> > commercial development: I want to focus on whatever goals will help
> sustain
> > and provide funding for this project. I wish and hope that Lively will
> > become a disruptive technology to transform web development and web
> > graphics creation. 1. Browser brings the history and bookmarks. 2. The
> > toolkit brings it's own rendering and layout: whether it be the Lively
> > Kernel or other. Web standards? Just say no. Use a canvas instead and
> your
> > own toolkit. Also relating to graphics development: just say no to
> splicing
> > raster images for web display: render them in Lively.
> > So for intended user base maybe: 1. professional "web" developers but
> > retrain them, 2. education
> > Some of the early Lively collateral discusses making web programming
> simpler
> > without HTML, CSS, DOM, etc. The problem has been that Lively has not had
> > enough layout support to realistically compete or replace HTML and DOM.
> > Philip
> >
>
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